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R> LITERATURES 



LIFE 



BY 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 



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LIFE 



OF 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



BY 



WASHINGTON IRVING 



NEW YORK; 
JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 

j^ & 1 6 Vesey Street. 



PREFACE, 



In the course of a revised edition of my works I have come 
to a biographical sketch of Goldsmith, published several years, 
since. It was written hastily, as introductory to a selection 
from his writings ; and, though the facts contained in it were 
collected from various sources, I was chiefly indebted for them 
to the voluminous work of Mr. James Prior, who had collected 
and collated the most minute particulars of the poet's history 
with unwearied research and scrupulous fidelity ; but had ren- 
dered them, as I thought, in a form too cumbrous and overlaid 
with details and disquisitions, and matters uninteresting to the 
general reader. 

When I was about of late to revise my biographical sketch, 
preparatory to republication, a volume was put into my hands, 
recently given to the public by Mr. John Forster, of the Inner 
Temple, who, likewise availing himself of the labors of the in- 
defatigable Prior, and of a few new lights since evolved, has 
produced a biography of the poet, executed with a spirit, a 
feeling, a grace and an eloquence, that leave nothing to be de- 
sired. Indeed it would have been presumption in me to under- 
take the subject after it had been thus felicitously treated, did 
I not stand committed by my previous sketch. That sketch 
now appeared too meagre and insufficient to satisfy public de- 
mand ; yet it had to take its place in the revised series of my 
works unless something more satisfactory could be substituted. 
Under these circumstances I have again taken up the subject, 
and gone into it with more fulness than formerly, omitting 
none of the facts which I considered illustrative of the life and 
character of the poet, and giving them in as graphic a style as 
I could command. Still the hurried manner in which I have 
had to do this amidst the pressure of other claims on my atten- 
tion, and with the press dogging at my heels, has prevented 
me from giving some parts of the subject the thorough han- 
dling I could have wished. Those who would like to see it 



4 PREFACE. 

treated still more at large, with the addition of critical disqui- 
sitions and the advantage of collateral facts, would do well to 
refer themselves to Mr. Prior's circumstantial volumes, or to 
the elegant and discursive pages of Mr. Forster. 

For my own part, I can only regret my short-comings in 
what to me is a labor of love ; for it is a tribute of gratitude to 
the memory of an author whose writings were the delight of 
my childhood, and have been a source of enjoyment to me 
throughout life ; and to whom, of all others, I may address the 
beautiful apostrophe of Dante to Yirgil : 

Tu se' lo mio maestro, e '1 mio autore: 
Tu se' solo colui, da cu' io tolsi 
Lo bello stile, che m' ha fato onore. 
A 

W. I. 

Sunnyside, Aug. 1, 1849. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH: 



A BIOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTER I. 

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE— CHARACTERISTICS OP THE GOLDSMITH 
RACE — POETICAL BIRTHPLACE — GOBLIN HOUSE— SCENES OP BOY- 
HOOD— LISSOY— PICTURE OP A COUNTRY PARSON — GOLDSMITH'S 
SCHOOLMISTRESS — BYRNE, THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMASTER— GOLD- 
SMITH'S HORNPIPE AND EPIGRAM— UNCLE CONTARINE— SCHOOL 
STUDIES AND SCHOOL SPORTS — MISTAKES OP A NIGHT. 

There are few writers for whom the reader feels such per- 
sonal kindness as for Oliver Goldsmith, for few have so emi- 
nently possessed the magic gift of identifying themselves with 
their writings. We read his character in every page, and grow 
into familiar intimacy with him as we read. The artless be- 
nevolence that beams throughout his works; the whimsical, 
yet amiable views of human life and human nature ; the un- 
forced humor, blending so happily with good feeling and good 
sense, and singularly dashed at times with a pleasing melan- 
choly ; even the very nature of his mellow, and flowing, and 
softly-tinted style, all seem to bespeak his moral as well as his 
intellectual qualities, and make us love the man at the same 
time that we admire the author. While the productions of 
writers of loftier pretension and more sounding names are suf- 
fered to moulder on our shelves, those of Goldsmith are cher- 
ished and laid in our bosoms-.. We do not quote them with os- 
tentation, but they mingle with our minds, sweeten our tem- 
pers, and harmonize our thoughts ; they put us in good humor 



12 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

with ourselves and with the world, and in so doing they make 
iis happier and better men. 

An acquaintance with the private biography of Goldsmith 
lets us into the secret of his gifted pages. We there discover 
them to be little more than transcripts of his own heart and 
picturings of his fortunes. There he shows himself the same 
kind, artless, good-humored, excursive, sensible, whimsical, in- 
telligent being that he appears in his writings. Scarcely an 
adventure or character is given in his works that may not be 
traced to his own parti-colored story. Many of his most ludi- 
crous scenes and ridiculous incidents have been drawn from 
his own blunders and mischances, and he seems really to have 
been buffeted into almost every maxim imparted by him for 
the instruction of his reader. 

Oliver Goldsmith was born on the 10th of November, 17£8, 
at the hamlet of Pallas, or Pallasmore, county of Longford, in 
Ireland. He sprang from a respectable, but by no means a 
thrifty stock. Some families seem to inherit kindliness and 
incompetency, and to hand down virtue and poverty from 
generation to generation. Such was the case with the Gold- 
smiths. ' ' They were always, " according to their own accounts, 
! ■ a strange family ; they rarely acted like other people ; their 
hearts were in the right place, but their heads seemed to be 
doing anything but what they ought."—" They were remark- 
able," says another statement, "for their worth, but of no 
cleverness in the ways of the world." Oliver Goldsmith will be 
found faithfully to inherit the virtues and weaknesses of his 
race. 

His father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, with hereditary im- 
providence, married when very young and very poor, and 
starved along for several years on a small country curacy and 
the assistance of his wife's friends. His whole income, eked 
out by the produce of some fields which he farmed, and of 
some occasional duties performed for his wife's uncle, the 
rector of an adjoining parish, did not exceed forty pounds. 

" And passing rich with forty pounds a year." 

He inhabited an old, half rustic mansion, that stood on a 
rising ground in a rough, lonely part of the country, overlook- 
ing a low tract, occasionally flooded by the river Inny. In this 
house Goldsmith was born, and it was a birthplace worthy of 
a poet ; for, by all accounts, it was haunted ground. A tradition 
handed down among the neighboring peasantry states that, in 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 13 

after years, the house, remaining for some time untenanted, 
went to decay, the roof fell in, and it became so lonely and for- 
lorn as to be a resort for the ' ' good people" or fairies, who in 
Ireland are supposed to delight in old, crazy, deserted man- 
sions for their midnight revels. All attempts to repair it were 
in vain ; the fairies battled stoutly to maintain possession. A 
huge misshapen hobgoblin used to bestride the house every 
evening with an immense pair of jack-boots, which, in his 
efforts at hard riding, he would thrust through the roof, kick- 
ing to pieces all the work of the preceding day. The house 
was therefore left to its fate, and went to ruin. 

Such is the popular tradition about Goldsmith's birthplace. 
About two years after his birth a change came over the cir- 
cumstances of his father. By the death of his wife's uncle he 
succeeded to the rectory of Kilkenny West ; and, abandoning 
the old goblin mansion, he removed to Lissoy, in the county of 
Westmeath, where he occupied a farm of seventy acres, situ- 
ated on the skirts of that pretty little village. 

This was the scene of Goldsmith's boyhood, the little world 
whence he drew many of those pictures, rural and domestic, 
whimsical and touching, which abound throughout his works, 
and which appeal so eloquently both to the fancy and the 
heart. Lissoy is confidently cited as the original of his "Au- 
burn" in the " Deserted Village ;" his father's establishment, a 
mixture of farm and parsonage, furnished hints, it is said, 
for the rural economy of the Vicar of Wakefield; and his 
father himself, with his learned simplicity, his guileless wis- 
dom, his amiable piety, and utter ignorance of the world, has 
been exquisitely portrayed in the worthy Dr. Primrose. Let 
us pause for a moment, and draw from Goldsmith's writings 
one or two of those pictures which, under feigned names, rep- 
resent his father and his family, and the happy fireside of his 
childish days. 

"My father," says the "Man in Black," who, in some re- 
spects, is a counterpart of Goldsmith himself , "my father, the 
younger son of a good family, was possessed of a small living 
in the church. His education was above his fortune, and his 
generosity greater than his education. Poor as he was, he had 
his flatterers poorer than himself ; for every dinner he gave 
them, they returned him an equivalent in praise ; and this was 
all he wanted. The same ambition that actuates a monarch at 
the head of his army influenced my father at the head of his 
lable ; he told the story of the ivy-tree, and that was laughed, 



14 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

at; he repeated the jest of the two scholars and one pair of 
breeches, and the company laughed at that; but the story of 
Taffy in the sedan-chair was sure to set the table in a roar. 
Thus his pleasure increased in proportion to the pleasure he 
gave ; he loved all the world, and he fancied all the world loved 
him. 

lC As his fortune was but small, he lived up to the very extent 
of it; he had no intention of leaving his children money, 
for that was dross ; he resolved they should have learning, for 
learning, he used to observe, was better than silver or gold. 
For this purpose he undertook to instruct us himself, and took 
as much care to form our morals as to improve our under- 
standing. We were told that universal benevolence was what 
first cemented society ; we were taught to consider all the 
wants of mankind as our own: to regard the human face 
divine with affection and esteem ; he wound us up to be mere 
machines of pity, and rendered us incapable of withstanding 
the slightest impulse made either by real or fictitious distress. 
In a word, we were perfectly instructed in the art of giving 
away thousands before we were taught the necessary qualifica- 
tions of getting a farthing. " 

In the Deserted Village we have another picture of his father 
and his father's fireside : 

" His house was known to all the vagrant train, 
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain; 
The long-remembered beggar was his guest, 
Whose beard, descending, swept his aged breast; 
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud, 
Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd; 
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, 
Sat by his fire, and talk'd the night away; 
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done, 
Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won. 
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, 
And quite forgot their vices in their woe; 
Careless their merits or their faults to scan, 
His pity gave ere charity began." 

The family of the worthy pastor consisted of five sons and 
three daughters, Henry, the eldest, was the good man's pride 
and hope, and he tasked his" slender means to the utmost in 
educating him for a learned and distinguished career. Oliver 
was the second son, and seven years younger than Henry, who 
was the guide and protector of his childhood, and to whom he 
was most tenderly attached throughout life. 

QUver's education began when he was about three years 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. fg 

old ; that is to say, he was gathered tinder the wings of one of 
those good old motherly dames, found in every village, who 
cluck together the whole callow brood of the neighborhood, to 
teach them their letters and keep them out of harm's way. 
Mistress Elizabeth Delap, for that was her name, flourished in 
this capacity for upward of fifty years, and ifc was the pride 
and boast of her declining days, when nearly ninety years of 
age, that she was the first that had put a book (doubtless a 
hornbook) into Goldsmith's hands. Apparently he did not 
much profit by it, for she confessed he was one of the dullest 
boys she had ever dealt with, insomuch that she had some- 
times doubted whether it was possible to make anything of 
him : a common case with imaginative children, who are apt 
to be beguiled from the dry abstractions of elementary study 
by the picturings of the fancy. 

At six years of age he passed into the hands of the village 
schoolmaster, one Thomas (or, as he was commonly and 
irreverently named, Paddy) Byrne, a capital tutor for a poet. 
He had been educated for a pedagogue, but had enlisted in 
the army, served abroad during the wars of Queen Anne's 
time, and risen to the rank of quartermaster of a regiment in 
Spain. At the return of peace, having no longer exercise for 
the sword, he resumed the ferule, and drilled the urchin 
populace of Lissoy. Goldsmith is supposed to have had him 
and his school in view in the following sketch in his Deserted 
Village : 



" Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, 
With blossom 'd furze unprofitablj" gay, 
There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule, 
The village master taught his little school; 
A man severe he was, and stern to view, 
I knew him well, and every truant knew: 
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace 
The day's disasters in his morning face; 
Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee 
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he; 
Full well the busy whisper circling round, 
Convey d the dismal tidings when he frown'd: 
Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, 
The love he bore to learning was in fault; 
The village all declared how much he knew, 
'Twas certain he could write and cipher too; 
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, 
And e'en the story ran that he could gauge: 
In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill, 
For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still ; 



1$ OLIVER GtiZMMXfA 

While words of learned length and thund'ring sound 
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around— 
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, 
That one small head could carry all he knew." 

There are certain whimsical traits in the character of 
Byrne, not given in the foregoing sketch. He was fond of 
talking of his vagabond wanderings in foreign lands, and had 
brought with him from the wars a world of campaigning 
stories, of which he was generally the hero, and which he 
would deal Lorth to his wondering scholars when he ought to 
have been teaching them their lessons. These travellers' tales 
had a powerful effect upon the vivid imagination of Gold- 
smith, and awakened an unconquerable passion for wander- 
ing and seeking adventure. 

Byrne was, moreover, of a romantic vein, and exceedingly 
superstitious. He was deeply versed in the fairy superstitions 
which abound in Ireland, all which he professed implicitly to 
believe. Under his tuition Goldsmith soon became almost as 
great a proficient in fairy lore. From this branch of good-for- 
nothing knowledge, his studies, by an easy transition, ex- 
tended to the histories of robbers, pirates, smugglers, and the 
whole race of Irish rogues and rapparees. Everything, in 
short, that savored of romance, fable, and adventure was 
congenial to his poetic mind, and took instant root there ; but 
the slow plants of useful knowledge were apt to be overrun, if 
not choked, by the weeds of his quick imagination. 

Another trait of his motley preceptor, Byrne, was a disposi- 
tion to dabble in poetry, and this likewise was caught by his 
pupil. Before he was eight years old Goldsmith had con- 
tracted a habit of scribbling verses on small scraps of paper, 
which, in a little while, he would throw into the fire. A few 
of these sibylline leaves, however, were rescued from the 
flames and conveyed to his mother. The good woman read 
them with a mother's delight, and saw at once that her son 
was a genius and a poet. From that time she beset her 
husband with solicitations to give the boy an education 
suitable to his talents. The worthy man was already strait- 
ened by the costs of instruction of his eldest son Henry, and 
had intended to bring his second son up to a trade ; but the 
mother would listen to no such thing ; as usual, her influence 
prevailed, and Oliver, instead of being instructed in some 
humble but cheerful and gainful handicraft, was devoted to 
poverty and the Muse. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 17 

A severe attack of the small- pox caused him to be taken 
from under the care of his story-telling preceptor, Byrne. 
His malady had nearly proved fatal, and his face remained 
pitted through life. On his recovery he was placed under the 
charge of the Rev. Mr. Griffin, schoolmaster of Elphin, in 
Roscommon, and became an inmate in the house of his uncle, 
John Goldsmith, Esq., of Bally oughter, in that vicinity. He 
now entered upon studies of a higher order, but without 
making any uncommon progress. Still a careless, easy 
facility of disposition, an amusing eccentricity of manners, 
and a vein of quiet and peculiar humor, rendered him a 
.general favorite, and a trifling incident soon induced his 
uncle's family to concur in his mother's opinion of his genius. 

A number of young folks had assembled at his uncle's to 
dance. One of the company, named Cummings, played on 
the violin. In the course of the evening Oliver undertook a 
hornpipe. His short and clumsy figure, and his face pitted 
and discolored with the small-pox, rendered him a ludicrous 
figure in the eyes of the musician, who made merry at his 
expense, dubbing him his little iEsop. Goldsmith was nettled 
by the jest, and, stopping short in the hornpipe, exclaimed, 

" Our herald hath proclaimed this saying, 
See iEsop dancing, and his monkey playing." 

The repartee was thought wonderful for a boy of nine years 
old, and Oliver became forthwith the wit and the bright 
genius of the family. It was thought a pity he should not 
receive the same advantages with his elder brother Henry, 
who had been sent to the University ; and, as his father's 
circumstances would not afford it, several of his relatives, 
spurred on by the representations of his mother, agreed to 
contribute toward the expense. The greater part, however, 
was borne by his uncle, the Rev. Thomas Contarine. This 
worthy man had been the college companion of Bishop Berke- 
ley, and was possessed of moderate means, holding the living 
of Carrick-on-Shannon, He had married the sister of Gold- 
smith's father, but was now a widower, with an only child, a 
daughter, named Jane. Contarine was a kind-hearted man, 
with a generosity beyond his means. He took Goldsmith into 
favor from his infancy; his house was open to him during 
the holidays; his daughter Jane, two years older than the 
poet, ™ Qe * h*.** ^ Q T-iy playmate; and uncle Contarine continued 



18 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

to the last one of his most active, unwavering, and generous 
friends. 

Fitted out in a great measure by this considerate relative, 
Oliver was now transferred to schools of a higher order, to 
prepare him for the University ; first to one at Athlone, kept 
by the Eev. Mr. Campbell, and, at the end of two years, to 
one at Edgeworthstown, under the superintendence of the 
Eev. Patrick Hughes. 

Even at these schools his proficiency does not appear to have 
been brilliant. He was indolent and careless, however, rather 
than dull, and, on the whole, appears to have been well thought 
of by his teachers. In his studies he inclined toward the Latin 
poets and historians ; relished Ovid and Horace, and delighted 
in Livy. He exercised himself with pleasure in reading and 
translating Tacitus, and was brought to pay attention to style 
in his compositions by a reproof from his brother Henry, to 
whom he had written brief and confused letters, and who told 
him in reply, that if he had but little to say, to endeavor to say 
that little well. 

The career of his brother Henry at the University was 
enough to stimulate him to exertion. He seemed to be realiz- 
ing all his father's hopes, and was winning collegiate honors 
that the good man considered indicative of his future success 
in life. 

In the meanwhile Oliver, if not distinguished among his 
teachers, was popular among his schoolmates. He had a 
thoughtless generosity extremely captivating to young hearts ; 
his temper was quick and sensitive, and easily offended ; but 
his anger was momentary, and it was impossible for him to 
harbor resentment. He was the leader of all boyish sports and 
athletic amusements, especially ball-playing, and he was fore- 
most in all mischievous pranks. Many years afterward, an 
old man, Jack Fitzimmons, one of the directors of the sports 
and keeper of the ball-court at Ballymahon, used to boast of 
having been schoolmate of "Noll Goldsmith," as he called him, 
and would dwell with vainglory on one of their exploits, in 
robbing the orchard of Tirlicken, an old family residence of 
Lord Annaly. The exploit, however, had nearly involved dis- 
astrous consequences; for the crew of juvenile depredators 
were captured, like Shakespeare and his deer-stealing col- 
leagues, and nothing but the respectability of Goldsmith's 
connections saved him from the punishment that would 
have awaited more plebeian delinquents. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 19 

An amusing incident is related as occurring in Goldsmith's 
last journey homeward from Edgeworthstown. His father's 
house was about twenty miles distant ; the road lay through 
a rough country, impassable for carriages. Goldsmith pro- 
cured a horse for the journey, and a friend furnished him with 
a guinea for travelling expenses. He was but a stripling of 
sixteen, and being thus suddenly mounted on horseback, with 
money in his pocket, it is no wonder that his head was 
turned. He determined to play the man, and to spend his 
money in independent traveller's style. Accordingly, instead 
of pushing directly for home, he halted for the night at the little 
town of Ardagh, and, accosting the first person he met, in- 
quired, with somewhat of a consequential air, for the best 
house in the place. Unluckily, the person he had accosted was 
one Kelly, a notorious wag, who was quartered in the family 
of one Mr. Featherstone, a gentleman of fortune. Amused 
with the self-consequence of the stripling, and willing to play 
off a practical joke at his expense, he directed him to what was 
literally "the best house in the place," namely, the family 
mansion of Mr. Featherstone. Goldsmith accordingly rode up 
to what he supposed to be an inn, ordered his horse to be taken 
to the stable, walked into the parlor, seated himself by the fire, 
and demanded what he could have for supper. On ordinary 
occasions he was diffident and even awkward in his manners, 
but here he was "at ease in his inn," and felt called upon to 
show his manhood and enact the experienced traveller. His 
person was by no means calculated to play off his pretensions, 
for he was short and thick, with a pock-marked face, and an 
air and carriage by no means of a distinguished cast. The 
owner of the house, however, soon discovered his whimsical 
mistake, and, being a man of humor, determined to indulge it, 
especially as he accidentally learned that this intruding guest 
was the son of an old acquaintance. 

Accordingly Goldsmith was "fooled to the top of his bent," 
and permitted to have full sway throughout the evening. Never 
was schoolboy more elated. When supper was served, he 
most condescendingly insisted that the landlord, his wife and 
daughter should partake, and ordered a bottle of wine to crown 
the repast and benefit the house. His last flourish was on going 
to bed, when he gave especial orders to have a hot cake at 
breakfast. His confusion and dismay, on discovering the next 
morning that he had been swaggering in this free and easy 
way in the house of a private gentleman, may be readily con- 



20 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

ceived. True to his habit of turning the events of his life to 
literary account, we find this chapter of ludicrous blunders 
and cross purposes dramatized many years afterward in his 
admirable comedy of " She Stoops to Conquer, or the Mistakes 
of a Night." 



CHAPTEE II. 

IMPROVIDENT MARRIAGES IN THE GOLDSMITH FAMILY — GOLDSMITH 
AT THE UNIVERSITY — SITUATION OF A SIZER — TYRANNY OF 
WILDER, THE TUTOR — PECUNIARY STRAITS— STREET BALLADS — 
COLLEGE RIOT— GALLOWS WALSH — COLLEGE PRIZE— A DANCE 
INTERRUPTED. 

While Oliver was making his way somewhat negligently 
through the schools, his elder brother Henry was rejoicing his 
father's heart by his career at the University. He soon dis- 
tinguished himself at the examinations, and obtained a scholar- 
ship in 1743. This is a collegiate distinction which serves as a 
stepping-stone in any of the learned professions, and which 
leads to advancement in the University should the individual 
choose to remain there. His father now trusted that he would 
push forward for that comfortable provision, a fellowship, and 
thence to higher dignities and emoluments. Henry, however, 
had the improvidence or the " unworldliness" of his race; re- 
turning to the country during the succeeding vacation, he 
married for love, relinquished, of course, all his collegiate 
prospects and advantages, set up a school in his father's neigh- 
borhood, and buried his talents and acquirements for the re- 
mainder of his life in a curacy of forty pounds a year. 

Another matrimonial event occurred not long afterward in 
the Goldsmith family, to disturb the equanimity of its worthy 
head. This was the clandestine marriage of his daughter 
Catherine with a young gentleman of the name of Hodson, 
who had been confided to the care of her brother Henry to 
complete his studies. As the youth was of wealthy parentage, 
it was thought a lucky match for the Goldsmith family; but 
the tidings of the event stung the bride's father to the soul. 
Proud of his integrity, and jealous of that good name which was 
his clr Q * T^^ssion, he saw himself and his family subjected 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 21 

to the degrading suspicion of having abused a trust reposed in 
them to promote a mercenary match. In the first transports 
of his feelings he is said to have uttered a wish that his daugh- 
ter might never have a child to bring like shame and sorrow 
on her head. The hasty wish, so contrary to the usual benig- 
nity of the man, was recalled and repented of almost as soon as 
uttered- but it was considered baleful in its effects by the 
superstitious neighborhood ; for, though his daughter bore 
three children, they all died before her. 

A more effectual measure was taken by Mr. Goldsmith to 
ward cff the apprehended imputation, but one which imposed 
a heavy burden on his family. This was to furnish a marriage 
portion of four hundred pounds, that his daughter might not 
be said to have entered her husband's family empty-handed. 
To raise the sum in cash was impossible; but he assigned to 
Mr Hodson his little farm and the income of his tithes until 
the marriage portion should be paid. In the mean time, as his 
living did not amount to £200 per annum, he had to practise 
the strictest economy to payoff gradually this heavy tax in- 
curred by his nice sense of honor. 

The first of his family to feel the effects of this economy was 
Oliver. The time had now arrived for him to be sent to the 
University, and, accordingly, on the 11th June, 1745, when 
sixteen years of age, he entered Trinity College, Dublin; but 
his father was no longer able to place him there as a pensioner, 
as he had done his eldest son Henry; he was obliged, therefore, 
to enter him as a sizer, or "poor scholar." He was lodged in 
one of the top rooms adjoining the library of the building, 
numbered 85, where it is said his name may still be seen, 
scratched by himself upon a window frame. 

A student of this class is taught and boarded gratuitously, 
and has to pay but a very small sum for his room. It is ex- 
pected, in return for these advantages, that he will be a dili- 
gent student, and render himself useful in a variety of ways. 
At Trinity College, at the time of Goldsmith's admission, sev- 
eral derogatory and indeed menial offices were exacted from 
the sizer, as if the college sought to indemnify itself for confer- 
ring benefits by inflicting indignities. He was obliged to sweep 
part of the courts in the morning, to carry up the dishes from 
the kitchen to the fellows' table, and to wait in the hall until 
that body had dined. His very dress marked the inferiority 
of the "poor student" to his happier classmates. It was a 
black gown of coarse stuff without sleeves, and a plam black 



22 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

cloth cap without a tassel. We can conceive nothing more 
odious and ill-judged than these distinctions, which attached 
the idea of degradation to poverty, and placed the indigent 
youth of merit helow the worthless minion of fortune. They 
were calculated to wound and irritate the noble mind, and to 
render the base mind baser. 

Indeed, the galling effect of these servile tasks upon youths 
of proud spirits and quick sensibilities became at length too 
notorious to be disregarded. About fifty years since, on a 
Trinity Sunday, a number of persons were assembled to wit- 
ness the college ceremonies ; and as a sizer was carrying up a 
dish of meat to the fellows' table, a burly citizen in the crowd 
made some sneering observation on the servility of his office. 
Stung to the quick, the high-spirited youth instantly flung the 
dish and its contents at the head of the sneerer. The sizer was 
Sharply reprimanded for this outbreak of wounded pride, but 
the degrading task was from that day forward very properly 
consigned to menial hands. 

It was with the utmost repugnance that Goldsmith entered 
college in this capacity. His shy and sensitive nature was 
affected by the inferior station he was doomed to hold among 
his gay and opulent fellow-students, and he became, at times, 
moody and despondent. A recollection of these early mortifi- 
cations induced him, in after years, most strongly to dissuade 
his brother Henry, the clergyman, from sending a son to col- 
lege on a like footing. "If he has ambition, strong passions, 
and an exquisite sensibility of contempt, do not send him 
there, unless you have no other trade for him except your 
own." 

To add to his annoyances, the fellow of the college who had 
the peculiar control of his studies, the Rev. Theaker Wilder, 
was a man of violent and capricious temper, and of diametri- 
cally opposite tastes. The tutor was devoted to the exact 
sciences ; Goldsmith was for the classics. Wilder endeavored 
to force his favorite studies upon the student by harsh means, 
suggested by his own coarse and savage nature. He abused 
him in presence of the class as ignorant and stupid ; ridiculed 
him as awkward and ugly, and at times in the transports of 
his temper indulged in personal violence. The effect was to 
aggravate a passive distaste into a positive aversion. Gold- 
smith was loud in expressing his contempt for mathematics 
and his dislike of ethics and logic; and the prejudices thus 
imbibed continued through life. Mathematics he always pro- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 23 

nounced a science to which the meanest intellects were compe- 
tent. 

A truer cause of this distaste for the severer studies may 
probably be found in his natural indolence and his love of con- 
vivial pleasures. ' ' I was a lover of mirth, good-humor, and 
even sometimes of fun," said he, "from my childhood." He 
sang a good song, was a boon companion, and could not resist 
any temptation to social enjoyment. He endeavored to per- 
suade himself that learning and dulness went hand in hand, 
and that genius was not to be put in harness. Even in riper 
years, when the consciousness of his own deficiencies ought to 
have convinced him of the importance of early study, he 
speaks slightingly of college honors. 

" A lad," says he, "whose passions are not strong enough in 
youth to mislead him from that path of science which his 
tutors, and not his inclination, have chalked out, by four or 
five years' perseverance will probably obtain every advantage 
and honor his college can bestow. I would compare the man 
whose youth has been thus passed in the tranquillity of dispas- 
sionate prudence, to liquors that never ferment, and, conse- 
quently, continue always muddy." 

The death of his worthy father, which took place early in 
1747, rendered Goldsmith's situation at college extremely irk- 
some. His mother was left with little more than the means of 
providing for the wants of her household, and was unable to< 
furnish him any remittances. He would have been compelled,, 
therefore, to leave college, had it not been for the occasional 
contributions of friends, the foremost among whom was his 
generous and warm-hearted uncle Contarine. Still these sup- 
plies were so scanty and precarious, that in the intervals be- 
tween them he was put to great straits. He had two college as- 
sociates from whom he would occasionally borrow small sums \ 
one was an early schoolmate, by the name of Beatty ; the other 
a cousin, and the chosen companion of his frolics, Robert (or 
rather Bob) Bryanton, of Ballymulvey House, near Ballyma- 
hon. When these casual supplies failed him he was more than 
once obliged to raise funds for his immediate wants by pawn- 
ing his books. At times he sank into despondency, but he had 
what he termed "a knack at hoping," which soon buoyed him 
up again. He began now to resort to his poetical vein as a 
source of profit, scribbling street-ballads, which he privately 
sold for five shillings each at a shop which dealt in such small 
wares of literature. He felt an author's affection for these 



%\ 6 LIVER GOLbsMlTir. 

unowned bantlings, and we are told would stroll privately 
through the streets at night to hear them sung, listening to 
the comments and criticisms of bystanders, and observing the 
degree of applause which each received. 

Edmund Burke was a fellow-student with Goldsmith at the 
college. Neither the statesman nor the poet gave promise of 
their future celebrity, though Burke certainly surpassed his 
contemporary in industry and application, and evinced more 
disposition for self -improvement, associating himself with a 
number of his fellow-students in a debating club, in which 
they discussed literary topics, and exercised themselves in 
composition. 

Goldsmith may likewise have belonged to this association, 
but his propensity was rather to mingle with the gay and 
thoughtless. On one occasion we find him implicated in an 
affair that came nigh producing his expulsion. A report was 
brought to college that a scholar was in the hands of the bail- 
iffs. This was an insult in which every gownsman felt him- 
self involved. A number of the scholars flew to arms, and 
sallied forth to battle, headed by a hare-brained fellow nick- 
named Gallows Walsh, noted for his aptness at mischief and 
fondness for riot. The stronghold of the bailiff was carried by 
storm, the scholar set at liberty, and the delinquent catchpole 
borne off captive to the college, where, having no pump to put 
him under, they satisfied the demands of collegiate law by 
ducking him in an old cistern. 

Flushed with this signal victory, Gallows Walsh now ha- 
rangued his followers, and proposed to break open Newgate, 
or the Black Dog, as the prison was called, and effect a general 
jail delivery. He was answered by shouts of concurrence, 
and away went the throng of madcap youngsters, fully bent 
upon putting an end to the tyranny of law. They were joined 
by the mob of the city and made an attack upon the prison 
with true Irish precipitation and thoughtlessness, never hav- 
ing provided themselves with cannon to batter its stone walls. 
A few shots from the prison brought them to their senses, and 
they beat a hasty retreat, two of the townsmen being killed, 
and several wounded. 

A severe scrutiny of this affair took place at the University. 
Four students, who had been ringleaders, were expelled ; four 
others, who had been prominent in the affray, were public- 
ly admonished; among the latter was the unlucky Gold- 
cmith. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 25 

To make up for this disgrace, he gained, within a month 
afterward, one of the minor prizes of the college. It is true it 
was one of the very smallest, amounting in pecuniary value to 
but thirty shillings, but it was the first distinction he had 
gained in his whole collegiate career. This turn of success 
and sudden influx of wealth proved too much for the head of 
our poor student. He forthwith gave a supper and dance at 
his chamber to a number of young persons of both sexes from 
the city, in direct violation of college rules. The unwonted 
sound of the fiddle reached the ears of the implacable Wilder. 
He rushed to the scene of unhallowed festivity, inflicted cor- 
poral punishment on the "father of the feast," and turned his 
astonished guests neck and heels out of doors. 

This filled the measure of poor Goldsmith's humiliations ; he 
felt degraded both within college and without. He dreaded 
the ridicule of his fellow-students for the ludicrous termina- 
tion of his orgie, and he was ashamed to meet his city acquain- 
tances after the degrading chastisement received in their pres- 
ence, and after their own ignominious expulsion. Above all, 
he felt it impossible to submit any longer to the insulting ty- 
ranny of Wilder ; he determined, therefore, to leave, not merely 
the college, but also his native land, and to bury what he con- 
ceived to be his irretrievable disgrace in some distant country. 
He accordingly sold his books and clothes, and sallied forth 
from the college walls the very next day, intending to embark 
at Cork for— he scarce knew where — America, or any other 
part beyond sea. With his usual heedless imprudence, how- 
ever, he loitered about Dublin until his finances were reduced 
to a shilling; with this amount of specie he set out on his 
journey. 

For three whole days he subsisted on his shilling ; when that 
was spent, he parted with some of the clothes from his back, 
until, reduced almost to nakedness, he was four-and-twenty 
hours without food, insomuch that he declared a handful of 
gray pease, given to him by a girl at a wake, was one of the 
most delicious repasts he had ever tasted. Hunger, fatigue, 
and destitution brought down his spirit and calmed his anger. 
Fain would he have retraced his steps, could he have done so 
with any salvo for the lingerings of his pride. In his extre- 
mity he conveyed to his brother Henry information of his dis- 
tress, and of the rash project on which he had set out. His 
affectionate brother hastened to his relief; furnished him with 
money and clothes; soothed his f eelings with gentle counsel* 



26 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

prevailed upon him to return to college, and effected an indif- 
ferent reconciliation between him and Wilder. 

After this irregular sally upon life he remained nearly two 
years longer at the University, giving proofs of talent in occa- 
sional translations from the classics, for one of which he re- 
ceived a premium, awarded only to those who are the first in 
literary merit. Still he never made much figure at college, 
his natural disinclination to study being increased by the 
harsh treatment he continued to experience from his tutor. 

Among the anecdotes told of him while at college, is one in- 
dicative of that prompt but thoughtless and often whimsical 
benevolence which throughout life formed one of the most ec- 
centric yet endearing points of his character. He was engaged 
to breakfast one day with a college intimate, but failed to make 
his appearance. His friend repaired to his room, knocked at 
the door, and was bidden to enter. To his surprise, he found 
Goldsmith in his bed, immersed to his chin in feathers. A 
serio-comic story explained the circumstance. In the course 
of the preceding evening's stroll he had met with a woman with 
five children who implored his charity. Her husband was in 
the hospital ; she was just from the country, a stranger, and 
destitute, without food or shelter for her helpless offspring. 
This was too much for the kind heart of Goldsmith. He was 
almost as poor as herself, it is true, and had no money in his 
pocket ; but he brought her to the college gate, gave her the 
blankets from his bed to cover her little brood, and part of his 
clothes for her to sell and purchase food ; and, finding himself 
cold during the night, had cut open his bed and buried himself 
among the feathers. 

At length, on the 27th of February, 1749, 0. S., he was ad- 
mitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and took his final 
leave of the University. He was freed from college rule, that 
emancipation so ardently coveted by the thoughtless student, 
and which too generally launches him amid the cares, the 
hardships, and vicissitudes of life. He was freed, too, from the 
brutal tyranny of Wilder. If Ins kind and placable nature 
could retain any resentment for past injuries, it might have 
been gratified by learning subsequently that the passionate 
career of Wilder was terminated by a violent death in the 
course of a dissolute brawl ; but Goldsmith took no delight in 
the misfortunes even of his enemies. 

He now returned to his friends, no longer the student to sport 
«way the happy interval of vacation, but the anxious mar 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 27 

who is henceforth to shift for himself and make his way 
through the world. In fact, he had no legitimate home to re- 
turn to. At the death of his father, the paternal house at Lis- 
soy, in which Goldsmith had passed his childhood, had been 
taken by Mr. Hodson, who had married his sister Catherine. 
His mother had removed to Bally mahon, where she occupied 
a small house, and had to practise the severest frugality. His 
elder brother Henry served the curacy and taught the school 
of his late father's parish, and lived in narrow circumstances 
at Goldsmith's birthplace, the old goblin-house at Pallas. 

None of his relatives were in circumstances to aid him with 
anything more than a temporary home, and the aspect of 
every one seemed somewhat changed. In fact, his career at 
college had disappointed his friends, and they began to doubt 
his being the great genius they had fancied him. He whimsi- 
, cally alludes to this circumstance in that piece of autobiography, 
" The Man in Black," in the Citizen of the World. 

" The first opportunity my father had of finding his expecta- 
tions disappointed was in the middling figure I made at the 
University; he had flattered himself that he should soon see me 
rising into the foremost rank in literary reputation, but was 
mortified to find me utterly unnoticed and unknown. His 
disappointment might have been partly ascribed to his having 
overrated my talents, and partly to my dislike of mathemati- 
cal reasonings at a time when my imagination and memory, 
yet unsatisfied, were more eager after new objects than desir- 
ous of reasoning upon those I knew. This, however, did not 
please my tutors, who observed, indeed, that I was a little 
dull, but at the same time allowed that I seemed to be very 
good-natured, and had no harm in me." * 

The only one of his relatives who did not appear to lose faith 
in him was his uncle Contarine. This kind and considerate 
man, it is said, saw in him a warmth of heart requiring some 
skill to direct, and a latent genius that wanted time to mature, 
and these impressions none of his subsequent follies and irregu- 
larities wholly obliterated. His purse and affection, therefore, 
as well as his house, were now open to him, and he became his 
chief counsellor and director after his father's death. He urged 
him to prepare for holy orders, and others of his relatives con- 
curred in the advice. Goldsmith had a settled repugnance to a 
clerical life. This had been ascribed by some to conscientious 



* Citizen of the World, Letter xxvii. 



28 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

scruples, not considering himself of a temper and frame of mind 
for such a sacred office; others attributed it to his roving pro- 
pensities, and his desire to visit foreign countries ; he himself 
gives a whimsical objection in his biography of the " Man in 
Black :" u To be obliged to wear a long wig when I liked a short 
one, or a black coat when I generally dressed in brown, I 
thought such a restraint upon my liberty that I absolutely re- 
jected the proposal." 

In effect, however, his scruples were overruled, and he 
agreed to qualify himself for the office. He was now only 
twenty-one, and must pass two years of probation. They were 
two years of rather loitering, unsettled life. Sometimes he was 
at Lissoy, participating with thoughtless enjoyment in the 
rural sports and occupations of his brother-in-law, Mr. Hodson ; 
sometimes he was with his brother Henry, at the old goblin 
mansion at Pallas, assisting him occasionally in his school. 
The early marriage and unambitious retirement of Henry, 
though so subversive of the fond plans of his father, had proved 
happy in their results. He was already surrounded by a 
blooming family; he was contented with his lot, beloved by 
his parishioners, and lived in the daily practice of all the ami- 
able virtues, and the immediate enjoyment of their reward. 
Of the tender affection inspired in the breast of Goldsmith by 
the constant kindness of this excellent brother, and of the 
longing recollection with which, in the lonely wanderings of 
after years, he looked back upon this scene of domestic felicity, 
we have a touching instance in the well-known opening to his 
poem of " The Traveller:" 

"Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, 
Or by the lazy Scheld or wandering Po ; 

***** 

Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, 
My heart untravell'd fondly tupns to thee; 
Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain, 
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. 

Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend, 
And round his dwelling guardian saints attend; 
Bless'd be that spot, where cheerful guests retire 
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire ; 
Bless'd that abode where want and pain repair, 
And every stranger finds a ready chair: 

Bless'd be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd, 

Where all the ruddy family around 

Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail, 

Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale; 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 29 

Or press the bashful stranger to his food, 
And learn the luxury of doing good." 

During this loitering life Goldsmith pursued no study, but 
rather amused himself with miscellaneous reading; such as 
biography, travels, poetry, novels, plays— everything, in short, 
that administered to the imagination. Sometimes he strolled 
along the banks of the river Inny, where, in after years, when 
he had become famous, his favorite seats and haunts used to 
be pointed out. Often he joined in the rustic sports of the 
villagers, and became adroit at throwing the sledge, a favorite 
feat of activity and strength in Ireland. Recollections of these 
"healthful sports" we find in his " Deserted Village:" 

".How often have I bless'd the coming day, 
When toil remitting lent its turn to play, 
And all the village train, from labor free, 
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree: 
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground, 
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round." 

A boon companion in all his rural amusements was his 
cousin and college crony, Robert Bryanton, with whom he 
sojourned occasionally at Bally mulvey House in the neighbor- 
hood. They used to make excursions about the country on 
foot, sometimes fishing, sometimes hunting otter in the Inny. 
They got up a country club at the little inn of Ballymahon, of 
which Goldsmith soon became the oracle and prime wit, aston- 
ishing his unlettered associates by his learning, and being 
considered capital at a song and a story. From the rustic 
conviviality of the inn at Ballymahon, and the company 
which used to assemble there, it is surmised that he took some 
hints in after life for his picturing of Tony Lumpkin and his 
associates: "Dick Muggins, the exciseman; Jack Slang, the 
horse doctor; little Aminidab, that grinds the music-box, and 
Tom Twist, that spins the pewter platter." Nay, it is, thought 
that Tony's drinking song at the "Three Jolly Pigeons" was 
but a revival of one of the convivial catches at Ballymahon : 

" Then come put the jorum about, 
And let us be merry and clever, 
Our hearts and our liquors are stout, 

Here's the Three Jolly Pigeons for ever. 
Let some cry of woodcock or hare. 

Your bustards, your ducks, and your widgeons, 
But of all the gay birds in the air, 
Here's a health to the Three Jolly Pigeons. 
Toroddle, toroddle, toroll." 



30 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Notwithstanding all these accomplishments and this rural 
popularity", his friends began to shake their heads and shrug 
their shoulders when they spoke of him; and his brother 
Henry noted with anything but satisfaction his frequent visits 
to the club at Ballymahon. He emerged, however, unscathed 
from this dangerous ordeal, more fortunate in this respect 
than his comrade Bryanton ; but he retained throughout life 
a fondness for clubs ; often, too, in the course of his checkered 
career, he looked back to this period of rural sports and care^ 
less enjoyments as one of the few sunny spots of his cloudy 
life ; and though he ultimately rose to associate with birds of a 
finer feather, his heart would still yearn in secret after the 
" Three Jolly Pigeons." 



CHAPTER III. 

GOLDSMITH REJECTED BY THE BISHOP— SECOND SALLY TO SEE 
THE WORLD— TAKES PASSAGE FOR AMERICA— SHIP SAILS WITH- 
OUT HIM — RETURN ON FIDDLE-BACK — A HOSPITABLE FRIEND — 
THE COUNSELLOR, 

The time was now arrived for Goldsmith to apply for orders, 
and he presented himself accordingly before the Bishop of 
Elfphn for ordination. We have stated his great objection to 
clerical life, the obligation to wear a black coat ; and, whim- 
sical as it may appear, dress seemed in fact to have formed an 
obstacle to his entrance into the church. He had ever a pas- 
sion for clothing his sturdy but awkward little person in gay 
colors; and on this solemn occasion, when it was to be sup- 
posed his garb would be of suitable gravity, he appeared 
luminously arrayed in scarlet breeches ! He was rejected by 
the bishop ; some say for want of sufficient studious prepara- 
tion ; his rambles and frolics with Bob Bryanton, and his revels 
with the club at Ballymahon, having been much in the way of 
his theological studies ; others attribute his rejection to reports 
of his college irregularities, which the bishop had received 
from his old tyrant "Wilder; but those who look into the 
matter with more knowing eyes pronounce the scarlet breeches 
to have been the fundamental objection. "My friends," says 
Goldsmith, speaking through his humorous representative, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 31 

the "Man in Black" — ''.my friends were now perfectly satis- 
fied I was undone ; and yet they thought it a pity for one that 
had not the least harm in him, and was so very good-natured." 
His uncle Contarine, however, still remained unwavering in 
his kindness, though much less sanguine in his expectations. 
He now looked round for a humbler sphere of action, and 
through his influence and exertions Oliver was received as 
tutor in the family of a Mr. Flinn, a gentleman of the neigh- 
borhood. The situation was apparently respectable; he had 
his seat at the table, and joined the family in their domestic 
recreations and their evening game at cards. There was a 
servility, however, in his position, which was not to his taste ; 
nor did his deference for the family increase upon familiar in- 
tercourse. He charged a member of it with unfair play at 
cards. A violent altercation ensued, which ended in his 
throwing up his situation as tutor. On being paid off he found 
himself in possession of an unheard of amount of money. His 
wandering propensity and his desire to see the world were 
instantly in the ascendency. Without communicating his 
plans or intentions to his friends, he procured a good horse, 
and with thirty pounds in his pocket made his second sally 
forth into the world. 

The worthy niece and housekeeper of the hero of La Mancha 
could not have been more surprised and dismayed at one of 
the Don's clandestine expeditions, than were the mother and 
friends of Goldsmith when they heard of his mysterious de- 
parture. Weeks elapsed, and nothing was seen or heard of 
him. It was feared that he had left the country on one of his 
wandering freaks, and his poor mother was reduced almost to 
despair, when one day he arrived at her door almost as for- 
lorn in plight as the prodigal son. Of his thirty pounds not a 
shilling was left ; and instead of the goodly steed on which he 
had issued forth on his errantry, he was mounted on a sorry 
little pony, which he had nicknamed Fiddle-back. As soon as 
his mother was well assured of his safety, she rated him 
soundly for his inconsiderate conduct. His brothers and sis- 
ters, who were tenderly attached to him, interfered, and suc- 
ceeded in mollifying her ire ; and whatever lurking anger the 
good dame might have, was no doubt effectually vanquished 
by the following whimsical narrative which he drew up at his 
brother's house and dispatched to her : 

' ' My dear mother, if you will sit down and calmly listen to 
wjaat I say, you shall be fully resolved in every one of those 



32 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

many questions you have asked me. I went to Cork and con- 
verted my horse, which you prize so much higher than Fiddle- 
back, into cash, took my passage in a ship bound for America, 
and, at the same time, paid the captain for my freight and all 
the other expenses of my voyage. But it so happened that the 
wind did not answer for three weeks ; and you know, mother, 
that I could not command the elements. My misfortune was, 
that, when the wind served, I happened to be with a party in 
the country, and my friend the captain never inquired after 
me, but set saiLwith as much indifference as if I had been on 
board. The remainder of my time I employed in the city and 
its environs, viewing everything curious, and you know no one 
can starve while he has money in his pocket. 

"Reduced, however, to my last two guineas, I began to think 
of my dear mother and friends whom I had left behind me, 
and so bought that generous beast Fiddle-back, and bade adieu 
to Cork with only five shillings in my pocket. This, to be sure, 
was but a scanty allowance for man and horse toward a jour- 
ney of above a hundred miles ; but I did not despair, for I knew 
I must find friends on the road. 

' ' I recollected particularly an old and faithful acquaintance 
I made at college, who had often and earnestly pressed me to 
spend a summer with him, and he lived but eight miles from 
Cork. This circumstance of vicinity he would expatiate on to 
me with peculiar emphasis. 'We shall,' says he, 'enjoy the 
delights of both city and country, and you shall command my 
stable and my purse.' 

"However, upon the way I met a poor woman all in tears, 
who told me her husband had been arrested for a debt he was 
not able to pay, and that his eight children must now starve, 
bereaved as they were of his industry, which had been their 
only support. I thought myself at home, being not far from 
my good friend's house, and therefore parted with a moiety of 
all my store ; and pray, mother, ought I not to have given her 
the other half crown, for what she got would be of little use to 
her? However, I soon arrived at the mansion of my affection- 
ate friend, guarded by the vigilance of a huge mastiff, who 
flew at me and would have torn me to pieces but for the assist- 
ance of a woman, whose countenance was not less grim than 
that of the dog ; yet she with great humanity relieved me from 
the jaws of this Cerberus, and was prevailed on to carry up my 
name to her master. . 

•' Without suffering me to wait long ? my old friend, who wag 



OLIVER GO LjD SMITH. §§ 

then recovering froxii a severe fit of sickness, came down in Ms 
nightcap, nightgown, and slippers, and embraced me with the 
most cordial welcome, showed me in, and, after giving me a 
history of his indisposition, assured me that he considered him- 
self peculiarly fortunate in having under his roof the man he 
most loved on earth, and whose stay witfh him must, above all 
things, contribute to perfect his recovery. I now repented 
sorely I had not given the poor woman £he other half crown, 
as I thought all my bills of humanity would be punctually an- 
swered by this worthy man. I revealed to him my whole soul ; 
I opened to him all my distresses; and freely owned that I had 
but one half crown in my pocket; but that now, like a ship 
after weathering out the storm, I considered myself secure in a 
safe and hospitable harbor. He made no answer, but walked 
about the room, rubbing his hands as one in deep study. This 
I imputed to the sympathetic feelings of a tender heart, which 
increased my esteem for him, and, as that increased, I gave the 
most favorable interpretation to his silence. I construed it into 
delicacy of sentiment, as if he dreaded to wound my pride by 
expressing his commiseration in words, leaving his generous 
conduct to speak for itself. 

" It now approached six o'clock in the evening-; and as I had 
eaten no breakfast, and as my spirits were raised, my appetite 
for dinner grew uncommonly keen. At length the old woman 
came into the room with two plates, one spoon, and a dirty 
cloth, which she laid upon the table. This appearance, without 
increasing my spirits, did not diminish my appetite. My pro- 
tectress soon returned with a small bowl of sago, a small por- 
ringer of sour milk, a loaf of stale brown bread, and the heel of 
an old cheese all over crawling with mites. My friend apolo- 
gized that his illness obliged him to live on slops, and that bet- 
ter fare was not in the house; observing, at the same time, 
that a milk diet was certainly the most healthful; and at eight 
o'clock he again recommended a regular life, declaring that for 
his part he would lie down with the lamb and rise with the lark. 
My hunger was at this time so exceedingly sharp that I wished 
for another slice of the loaf, but was obliged to go to bed with- 
out even that refreshment. 

"This lenten entertainment I had received made me resolve 
to depart as soon as possible ; accordingly, next morning, when 
I spoke of going, he did not oppose my resolution ; he rather 
commended my design, adding some very sage counsel upon 
the occasion. ' To be sure,' said he, ' the longer you stay away 



34 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

from, your mother, the more you will grieve her and your other 
friends ; and possibly they are already afflicted at hearing of 
this f oolish expedition you have made.' Notwithstanding all 
this, and without any hope of softening such a sordid heart, I 
again renewed the tale of my distress, and asking 'how he 
thought I could travel above a hundred miles upon one half 
crown?' I begged to borrow a single guinea, which I assured 
him should be repaid with thanks. ' And you know, sir,' said 
I ' it is no more than I have done for you. ' To which he firmly 
answered, ' Why, look you, Mr. Goldsmith, that is neither here 
nor there. I have paid you all you ever lent me, and this 
sickness of mine has left me bare of cash. But I have be- 
thought myself of a conveyance for you; sell your horse, and I 
will furnish you a much better one to ride on.' I readily 
grasped at his proposal, and begged to see the nag ; on which 
he led me to his bedchamber, and from under the bed he pulled 
out a stout oak stick. ' Here he is,' said he ; ' take this in your 
hand, and it will carry you to your mother's with more safety 
than such a horse as you ride. ' I was in doubt, when I got it 
into my hand, whether I should not, in the first place, apply it 
to his pate; but a rap at the street door made the wretch fly to 
it, and when I returned to the parlor, he introduced me, as if 
nothing of the kind had happened, to the gentleman who en- 
tered, as Mr. Goldsmith, his most ingenious and worthy friend, 
of whom he had so often heard him speak with rapture. I 
could scarcely compose myself, and must have betrayed indig- 
nation in my mien to the stranger, who was a counsellor-at- 
law in the neighborhood, a man of engaging aspect and polite 
address. 

''After spending an hour, he asked my friend and me to 
dine with him at his house. This I declined at first, as I 
wished to have no farther communication with my hospitable 
friend; but at the solicitation of both I at last consented, de- 
termined as I was by two motives: one, that I was prejudiced 
in favor of the looks and manner of the counsellor ; and the 
other, that I stood in need of a comfortable dinner. And 
there, indeed, I found everything that I could wish, abund- 
ance without profusion, and elegance without affectation. In 
the evening, when my old friend, who had eaten very plenti- 
fully at his neighbor's table, but talked again of lying down 
with the lamb, made a motion to me for retiring, our generous 
host requested I should take a bed with him, upon which I 
plainly told my old friend that he might go home and take 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 35 

Care of the horse he had given me, but that I should never re- 
enter his doors. He went away with a laugh, leaving me to 
add this to the other little things the counsellor already knew 
of his plausible neighbor. 

"And now, my dear mother, I found sufficient to reconcile 
me to all my follies ; for here I spent three whole days, The 
counsellor had two sweet girls to his daughters, who played 
enchantingly on the harpsichord ; and yet it was but a mel- 
ancholy pleasure I felt the first time I heard them; for that 
being the first time also that either of them had touched the 
instrument since their mother's death, I saw the tears in 
silence trickle down their father's cheeks. I every day en- 
deavored to go away, but every day was pressed and obliged 
to stay. On my going, the counsellor offered me his purse, 
with a horse and servant to convey me home ; but the latter I 
declined, and only took a guinea to bear my necessary ex- 
penses on the road. 

"Oliver Goldsmith. 

"To Mrs. Anne Goldsmith, Ballymahon." 

Such is the story given by the poet-errant of this his second 
sally in quest of adventures. We cannot but think it was 
here and there touched up a little with the fanciful pen of the 
future essayist, with a view to amuse his mother and soften 
her vexation; but even in these respects it is valuable as 
showing the early play of his humor, and his happy knack of 
extracting sweets from that worldly experience which to 
others yields nothing but bitterness. 



CHAPTER IV. 

SALLIES FORTH AS A LAW STUDENT— STUMBLES AT THE OUTSET 
—COUSIN JANE AND THE VALENTINE — A FAMILY ORACLE — SAL- 
LIES FORTH AS A STUDENT OF MEDICINE — HOCUS-POCUS OF A 
BOARDING-HOUSE— TRANSFORMATIONS OF A LEG OF MUTTON — 
THE MOCK GHOST — SKETCHES OF SCOTLAND — TRIALS OF TOADY- 
ISM — A POET'S PURSE FOR A CONTINENTAL TOUR. 

A new consultation was held among Goldsmith's friends as 
to his future course, and it was determined he should try the 
law. His uncle Contarine agreed to advance the necessary 
funds, and actually furnished him with fifty pounds, with 



g6 OLIfUJM G0LD8MIHK 

which he set off for London, to enter on his studies at the 
Temple. Unfortunately, he fell in company at Dublin with a 
Eoscommon acquaintance, one whose wits had been sharpened 
about town, who beguiled him into a gambling-house, and 
soon left him as penniless as when he bestrode the redoubtable 
Fiddle-back. 

He was so ashamed of this fresh instance of gross heedless- 
ness and imprudence that he remained some time in Dublin 
without communicating to his friends his destitute condition. 
They heard of it, however, and he was invited back to the 
country, and indulgently forgiven by his generous uncle, but 
less readily by his mother, who was mortified and disheart- 
ened at seeing all her early hopes of him so repeatedly blighted. 
His brother Henry, too, began to lose patience at these suc- 
cessive failures, resulting from thoughtless indiscretion; and 
a quarrel took place, which for some time interrupted their 
usually affectionate intercourse. 

The only home where poor erring Goldsmith still received a 
welcome was the parsonage of his affectionate, forgiving 
uncle. Here he used to talk of literature with the good, 
simple-hearted man, and delight him and his daughter with 
his verses. Jane, his early playmate, was now the woman 
grown ; their intercourse was of a more intellectual kind than 
formerly ; they discoursed of poetry and music ; she played on 
the harpsichord, and he accompanied her with his flute. The 
music may not have been very artistic, as he never performed 
but by ear; it had probably as much merit as the poetry, 
which, if we may judge by the following specimen, was as yet 
but juvenile : 

TO A YOUNG LADY ON VALENTINE'S DAY. 

WITH THE DRAWING OF A HEART. 

With submission at your shrine, 
Comes a heart your Valentine; 
From the sirle where once it grew, 
See it panting flies to you. 
Take it, fair one, to your breast, 
Soothe the fluttering thing to rest; 
Let the gentle, spotless toy, 
Be your sweetest, greatest joy; 
Every night when wrapp'd in sleep, 
Next your heart the conquest keep; 
Or if dreams your fancy move, 
Hear it whisper me and love; 
Then in pity to the swain. 
Who must heartless else remain, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 37 

Soft as gentle dewy show'rs, 
Slow descend on April flow'rs; 
Soft as gentle riv'lets glide, 
Steal unnoticed to my side ; 
If the gem you have to spare, 
Take your own and place it there. 

If this valentine was intended for the fair Jane, and expres- 
sive of a tender sentiment indulged by the stripling poet, it 
was unavailing, as not long afterward she was married to a 
Mr. Lawder. We trust, however, it was but a poetical pas- 
sion of that transient kind which grows up in idleness and ex- 
hales itself in rhyme. While Oliver was thus piping and poet- 
izing at the parsonage, his uncle Contarine received a visit 
from Dean Goldsmith of Cloyne; a kind of magnate in the 
wide but improvident family connection, throughout which 
his word was law and almost gospel. This august dignitary 
was pleased to discover signs of talent in Oliver, and suggested 
that as he had attempted divinity and law without success, he 
should now try physic. The advice came from too important 
a source to be disregarded, and it was determined to send him 
to Edinburgh to commence his studies. The Dean having 
given the advice, added to it, we trust, his blessing, but no 
money ; that was furnished from the scantier purses of Gold- 
smith's brother, his sister (Mrs. Hodson) and his ever ready 
uncle, Contarine. 

It was in the autumn of 1752 that Goldsmith arrived in 
Edinburgh. His outset in that city came near adding to the 
list of his indiscretions and disasters. Having taken lodgings 
at haphazard, he left his trunk there, containing all his worldly 
effects, and sallied forth to see the town. After sauntering 
about the streets until a late hour, he thought of returning 
home, when, to his confusion, he found he had not acquainted 
himself with the name either of his landlady or of the street in 
which she lived. Fortunately, in the height of his whimsical 
perplexity, he met the cawdy or porter who had carried his 
trunk, and who now served him as a guide. 

He did not remain long in the lodgings in which he had put 
up. The hostess was too adroit at that hocus-pocus of the 
table which often is practised in cheap boarding-houses. No 
one could conjure a single joint through a greater variety of 
forms. A loin of mutton, according to Goldsmith's account, 
would serve him and two fellow-students a whole week. ' ' A 
brandered chop was served up one day, a fried steak another. 



38 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

collops with onion sauce a third, and so on until the fleshy 
parts were quite consumed, when finally a dish of broth was 
manufactured from the bones on the seventh day, and the 
landlady rested from her labors." Goldsmith had a good- 
humored mode of taking things, and for a short time amused 
himself with the shifts and expedients of his landlady, which 
struck him in a ludicrous manner ; he soon, however, fell in 
with fellow-students from his own country, whom he joined at 
more eligible quarters. 

He now attended medical lectures, and attached himself to 
an association of students called the Medical Society. He set 
out, as usual, with the best intentions, but, as usual, soon fell 
into idle, convivial, thoughtless habits. Edinburgh was in- 
deed a place of sore trial for one of his temperament. Con- 
vivial meetings were all the vogue, and the tavern was the 
universal rallying-place of good-fellowship. And then Gold- 
smith's intimacies lay chiefly among the Irish students, who 
were always ready for a wild freak and frolic. Among them 
he was a prune favorite and somewhat of a leader, from his 
exuberance of spirits, his vein of humor, and his talent at 
singing an Irish song and telling an Irish story. 

His usual carelessness in money matters attended him. 
Though his supplies from home were scanty and irregular, he 
never could bring himself into habits of prudence and econ- 
omy ; often he was stripped of all his present finances at play ; 
often he lavished them away in fits of unguarded charity or 
generosity. Sometimes among his boon companions he as- 
sumed a ludicrous swagger in money matters, which no one 
afterward was more ready than himself to laugh at. At a 
convivial meeting with a number of his fellow-students, he 
suddenly proposed to draw lots with any one present which 
of the two should treat the whole party to the play. The 
moment the proposition had bolted from his lips, his heart 
was in his throat. "To my great though secret joy," said he, 
' ' they all declined the challenge. Had it been accepted, and 
had I proved the loser, a part of my wardrobe must have been 
pledged in order to raise the money." 

At another of these meetings there was an earnest dispute 
on the question of ghosts, some being firm believers in the pos j 
sibility of departed spirits returning to visit their friends and 
familiar haunts. One of the disputants set sail the nest 
day for London, but the vessel put back through stress of 
weather. His return was unknown except to one of the be- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 3$ 

lievers in ghosts, who concerted with him a trick to be played 
off on the opposite party. In the evening, at a meeting of the 
students, the discussion was renewed; and one of the most 
strenuous opposers of ghosts was asked whether he considered 
himself proof against ocular demonstration? He persisted in 
his scoffing. Some solemn process of conjuration was per- 
formed, and the comrade supposed to he on his way to Lon- 
don made his appearance. The effect was fatal. The unbe- 
liever fainted at the sight, and ultimately went mad. We 
have no account of what share Goldsmith took in this transac- 
tion, at which he was present. 

The following letter to his friend Bryanton contains some of 
Goldsmith's impressions concerning Scotland and its inhabi- 
tants, and gives indications of that humor which characterized 
some of his later writings. 

" Robert Bryanton, at Ballymahon, Ireland. . 

" Edinburgh, September 26, 1753. 

"My dear Bob: How many good excuses (and you know 
I was ever good at an excuse) might I call up to vindicate my 
past shameful silence. I might tell how I wrote a long letter 
on my first coming hither, and seem vastly angry at my not 
receiving an answer ; I might allege that business (with busi- 
ness you know I was always pestered) had never given me 
time to finger a pen. But I suppress those and twenty more 
as plausible, and as easily invented, since they might be at- 
tended with a slight inconvenience of being known to be lies. 
Let me then speak truth. An hereditary indolence (I have it 
from the mother's side) has hitherto prevented my writing to 
you, and still prevents my writing at least twenty-five letters 
more, due to my friends in Ireland. No turn-spit-dog gets up 
into his wheel with more reluctance than I sit down to write ; 
yet no dog ever loved the roast meat he turns better than I do 
him I now address. 

"Yet what shall I say now I am entered? Shall I tire you 
with a description of this unfruitful country; where I must 
lead you over their hills all brown with heath, or their valleys 
scarcely able to feed a rabbit? Man alone seems to be the only 
creature who has arrived to the natural size in this poor soil. 
Every part of the country presents the same dismal landscape. 
No grove, nor brook, lend their music to cheer the stranger, or 
make the inhabitants forget their poverty. Yet with all these 



40 OL1VKR GOLDSMITH. 

disadvantages to call him down to humility, a Scotchman is 
one of the proudest things alive. The poor have pride ever 
ready to relieve them. If mankind should happen to despise 
them, they are masters of their own admiration, and that they 
can plentifully bestow upon themselves. 

" From their pride and poverty, as I take it, results one ad- 
vantage this country enjoys— namely, the gentlemen here are 
much better bred than among us. No such character here as 
our fox-hunters ; and they have expressed great surprise when 
I informed them that some men in Ireland of one thousand 
pounds a year spend their whole lives in running after a hare, 
and drinking to be drunk. Truly if such a being, equipped in 
his hunting dress, came among a circle of Scotch gentry, they 
would behold him with the same astonishment that a country- 
man does King George on horseback. 

■'The men here have generally high cheek bones, and are 
lean and swarthy, fond of action, dancing in particular. Now 
that I have mentioned dancing, let me say something of their 
balls, which are very frequent here. When a stranger enters 
the dancing-hall, he sees one end of the room taken up by the 
ladies, who sit dismally in a group by themselves ; in the other 
end stand their pensive partners that are to be ; but no more 
intercourse between the sexes than there is between two 
countries at war. The ladies indeed may ogle, and the gentle- 
men sigh; but an embargo is laid on any closer commerce. 
At length, to interrupt hostilities, the lady directress, or in- 
tendant, or what you will, pitches upon a lady and gentleman 
to walk a minuet ; which they perform with formality that ap- 
proaches to despondence. After five or six couple have thus 
'walked the gauntlet, all stand up to country dances; each 
gentleman furnished with a partner from the aforesaid lady 
directress; so they dance much, say nothing, and thus con- 
cludes our assembly. I told a Scotch gentleman that such 
profound silence resembled the ancient procession of the 
Roman matrons in honor of Ceres; and the Scotch gentleman 
told me (and, faith, I believe he was right) that I was a very 
great pedant for my pains. 

"Now I am come to the ladies; and to show that I love 
Scotland, and everything that belongs to so charming a 
country, I insist on it, and will give him leave to break my 
head that denies it—that the Scotch ladies are ten thousand 
times finer and handsomer than the Irish. To be sure, now, 
J gee your sisters Betty and Peggy vastly surprised at my 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 41 

partiality — but tell them flatly, I don't value them — or their 
fine skins, or eyes, or good sense, or -f— , a potato ; — for I say, 
and will maintain it; and as a convincing proof (I am in a 
great passion) of what I assert, the Scotch ladies say it them- 
selves. But to be less serious ; where will you find a language 
so prettily become a pretty mouth as the broad Scotch? And 
the women here speak it in its highest purity ; for instance, 
teach one of your young ladies at home to pronounce the 
' Whoar wull I gong? ' with a becoming widening of mouth, 
and I'll lay my life they'll wound every hearer. 

" We have no such character here as a coquet, but alas ! how 
many envious prudes ! Some days ago I walked into my Lord 
Kilcoubry's (don't be surprised, my lord is but a glover),* when 
the Duchess of Hamilton (that fair who sacrificed her beauty 
to her ambition, and her inward peace to a title and gilt equi- 
page) passed by in her chariot ; her battered husband, or more 
properly the guardian of her charms, sat by her side. Straight 
envy began, in the shape of no less than three ladies who sat 
with me, to find faults in her faultless form. 'For my part,' 
says the first, ' I think what I always thought, that the Duch- 
ess has too much of the red in her complexion.' ' Madam, I 
am not of your opinion, ' says the second ; ' I think her face has 
a palish cast too much on the delicate order.' ' And let me tell 
you,' added the third lady, whose mouth was puckered up to 
the size of an issue, ' that the Duchess has fine lips, but she 
wants a mouth.' At this every lady drew up her mouth as if 
going to pronounce the letter P. 

"But how ill, my Bob, does it become me to ridicule women 
with whom I have scarcely any correspondence ! There are, 
'tis certain, handsome women here ; and 'tis certain they have 
handsome men to keep them company. An ugly and poor 
man is society only for himself; and such society the world 
lets me enjoy in great abundance. Fortune has given you cir- 
cumstances, and nature a person to look charming in the eyes 
of the fair. Nor do I envy my dear Bob such blessings, while 
I may sit down and laugh at the world and at myself — the 
most ridiculous object in it. But you see I am grown down- 
right splenetic, and perhaps the fit may continue till I receive 



* William Maclellan, who claimed the title, and whose son succeeded in establish- 
ing the claim in 1773. The father is said to have voted at the election of the six- 
teen Peers for Scotland, and to have sold gloves in the lobby at this and other public 
assemblages. 



42 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

an answer to this. I know you cannot send me much news 
from Ballymahon, but such as it is, send it all ; everything you 
send will be agreeable to me. 

"Has George Conway put up a sign yet ; or John Binley left 
off drinking drams ; or Tom Allen got a new wig? But I leave 
you to your own choice what to write. While I live, know 
you have a true friend in yours, etc., etc., 

"Oliver Goldsmith. 

"P.S. Give my sincere respects (not compliments, do you 
mind) to your agreeable family, and give my service to my 
mother, if you see her ; for, as you express it in Ireland, I have 

a sneaking kindness for her still. Direct to me, , Student 

in Physic, in Edinburgh." 

Nothing worthy of preservation appeared from his pen dur- 
ing his residence in Edinburgh ; and indeed his poetical powers, 
highly as they had been estimated by his friends, had not as 
yet produced anything of superior merit. He made on one oc- 
casion a month's excursion to the Highlands. ' ' I set out the 
first day on foot," says he, in a letter to his uncle Contarine, 
"but an ill-natured corn I have on my toe has for the future 
prevented that cheap mode of travelling; so the second day I 
hired a horse about the size of a ram, and he walked away (trot 
he could not) as pensive as his master." 

During his residence in Scotland his convivial talents gained 
him at one time attentions in a high quarter, which, however, 
he had the good sense to appreciate correctly. ' ' I have spent, " 
says he, in one of his letters, "more than a fortnight every 
second day at the Duke of Hamilton's ; but it seems they like 
me more as a jester than as a companion, so I disdained so ser- 
vile an employment as unworthy my calling as a physician." 
Here we again find the origin of another passage in his auto-" 
biography, under the character of the "Man in Black," where- 
in that worthy figures as a flatterer to a great man. "At 
first," says he, "I was surprised that the situation of a flat- 
terer at a great man's table could be thought disagreeable; 
there was no great trouble in listening attentively when his 
lordship spoke, and laughing when he looked round for ap- 
plause. This, even good manners might have obliged me to 
perform. I found, however, too soon, his lordship was a 
greater dunce than myself, and from that moment flattery was 
at an end. I now rather aimed at setting him right, than at 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 43 

receiving his absurdities with submission : to flatter those we 
do not know is an easy task ; but to flatter our intimate ac- 
quaintances, all whose foibles are strongly in our eyes, is 
drudgery insupportable. Every time I now opened my lips 
in praise, my falsehood went to my conscience ; his lordship 
soon perceived me to be very unfit for his service : I was 
therefore discharged; my patron at the same time being gra-- 
-ciously pleased to observe that he believed I was tolerably 
good-natured, and had not the least harm in me." 

After spending two winters at Edinburgh, Goldsmith pre- 
pared to finish his medical studies on the Continent, for which 
his uncle Contarine agreed to furnish the funds. "I intend," 
said he, in a letter to his uncle, "to visit Paris, where the 
great Farheim, Petit, and. Du Hamel de Monceau instruct 
their pupils in all the branches of medicine. They speak 
French, and consequently I shall have much the advantage of 
most of my countrymen, as I am perfectly acquainted with 
that language, and few who leave Ireland are so. I shall 
spend the spring and summer in Paris, and the beginning of 
next winter go to Leyden. The great Albinus is still alive 
there, and 'twill be proper to go, though only to have it said 
that we have studied in so f amous a university. 

" As 1 shall not have another opportunity of receiving money 
from your bounty till my return to Ireland, so I have drawn 
for the last sum that I hope I shall ever trouble you for; 'tis 
£20. And now, dear sir, let me here acknowledge the humility 
of the station in which you found me ; let me tell how I was 
despised by most, and hateful to myself. Poverty, hopeless 
poverty, was my lot, and Melancholy was beginning to make 
me her ow n. When you— but I stop here, to inquire how your 
health goes on? How does my cousin Jenny, and has she re- 
covered her late complaint? How does my poor Jack Gold- 
smith? I fear his disorder is of such a nature as he won't 
easily recover. I wish, my dear sir, you would make me 
happy by another letter before I go abroad, for there I shall 
hardly hear from you. . . . Give my— how shall I express it? 
Give my earnest love to Mr. and Mrs. Lawder." 

Mrs. Lawder was Jane, his early playmate— the object of 
his valentine— his first poetical inspiration. She had been 
for some time married. 

Medical instruction, it will be perceived, was the ostensible 
motive for this visit to the Continent, but the real one, in all 
probability, was his long-cherished desire to see foreign parts. 



44 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

This, however, he would not acknowledge even to himself, but 
sought to reconcile his roving propensities with some grand 
moral purpose. "I esteem the traveller who instructs the 
heart," says he, in one of his subsequent writings, " but despise 
him who only indulges the imagination. A man who leaves 
home to mend himself and others is a philosopher; but he who 
goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of 
curiosity, is only a vagabond." He, of course, was to travel as 
a philosopher, and in truth his outfits for a continental tour 
were in character. "I shall carry just £33 to France," said he, 
"with good store of clothes, shirts, etc., and that with 
economy will suffice." He forgot to make mention of his flute, 
which it will be found had occasionally to come in play when 
economy could not replenish his purse, nor philosophy find 
him a supper. Thus slenderly provided with money, pru- 
dence, or experience, and almost as slightly guarded against 
4 'hard knocks" as the hero of La Mancha, whose head-piece 
was half iron, half -pasteboard, he made his final sally forth 
upon the world ; hoping all things ; believing all things : little 
anticipating the checkered ills in store for him ; little thinking 
when he penned his valedictory letter to his good uncle Conta- 
rine, that he was never to see him more ; never to return after 
all his wandering to the friend of his infancy ; never to revisit 
his early and fondly-remembered haunts at "sweet Lissoy" 
and Ballymahon. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE AGREEABLE FELLOW - PASSENGERS — RISKS FROM FRIENDS 
PICKED UP BY THE WAYSIDE — SKETCHES OF HOLLAND AND 
THE DUTCH—SHIFTS WHILE A POOR STUDENT AT LEYDEN — 
THE TULIP SPECULATION — THE PROVIDENT FLUTE— SOJOURN 
AT PARIS— SKETCH OF VOLTAIRE — TRAVELLING SHIFTS OF A 
PHILOSOPHIC VAGABOND. 

His usual indiscretion attended Goldsmith at the very outset 
of his foreign enterprise. He had intended to take shipping at 
Leith for Holland ; but on arriving at that port he found a ship 
about to sail for Bordeaux, with six agreeable passengers, 
whose acquaintance he had probably made at the inn. He was 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 45 

not a man to resist a sudden impulse ; so, instead of embarking 
for Holland, he found himself ploughing the seas on his way to 
the other side of the Continent. Scarcely had the ship been 
two days at sea, when she was driven by stress of weather to 
Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Here "of course" Goldsmith and his 
agreeable fellow-passengers found it expedient to go on shore 
paid "refresh themselves after the fatigues of the voyage." 
"Of course" they frolicked and made merry until a late hour 
in the evening, when, in the midst of their hilarity, the door 
was burst open, and a sergeant and twelve grenadiers entered 
with fixed bayonets, and took the whole convivial party, pri- 
soners. 

It seems that the agreeable companions with whom our 
greenhorn had struck up such a sudden intimacy were Scotch- 
men in the French service, who had been in Scotland enlisting 
recruits for the French army. 

In vain Goldsmith protested his innocence ; he was marched 
off with his fellow-revellers to prison, whence he with diffi- 
culty obtained his release at the end of a fortnight. With his 
customary facility, however, at palliating his misadventures, 
he found everything turn out for the best. His imprison- 
ment saved his life, for during his detention the ship proceeded 
on her voyage, but was wrecked at the mouth of the Garonne, 
and all on board perished. 

Goldsmith's second embarkation was for Holland direct, and 
in nine days he arrived at Rotterdam, whence he proceeded, 
without any more deviations, to Leyden. He gives a whimsical 
picture, in one of his letters, of the appearance of the Holland- 
ers. "The modern Dutchman is quite a different creature 
from him of former times : he in everything imitates a French- 
man but hi his easy, disengaged air. He is vastly ceremonious, 
and is, perhaps, exactly what a Frenchman might have been 
in the reign of Louis XIV. Such are the better bred. But the 
downright Hollander is one of the oddest figures in nature. 
Upon a lank head of hair he wears a half-cocked narrow hat, 
laced with black riband; no coat, but seven waistcoats and 
nine pair of breeches, so that his hips reach up almost to his 
armpits. This Avell-clothed vegetable is now fit to see company 
or make love. But what a pleasing creature is the object of 
Ins appetite! why, she wears a large fur cap, with a deal of 
Flanders lace ; and for every pair of breeches he carries, she 
puts on two petticoats. 

"A Dutch lady burns nothing about her phlegmatic adini/v^ 



46 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

but his tobacco. You must know, sir, every woman carries in 
her hand a stove of coals, which, when she sits, she snugs 
under her petticoats, and. at this chimney dozing Strephon 
lights his pipe." 

In the same letter he contrasts Scotland and Holland. 
"There hills and rocks intercept every prospect; here it is 
ail a continued plain. There you might see a well-dressed 
Duchess issuing from a dirty close, and here a dirty Dutchman 
inhabiting a palace. The Scotch may be compared to a tulip, 
planted in dung ; but I can never see a Dutchman in his own 
house but I think of a magnificent Egyptian temple dedicated 
to an ox." 

The country itself awakened his admiration. "Nothing," 
said he, ' ' can equal its beauty ; wherever I turn my eyes, fine 
houses, elegant gardens, statues, grottoes, vistas, present them- 
selves ; but when you enter their towns you are charmed be- 
yond description. No misery is to be seen here • every one is 
usefully employed." And again, in his noble description in 
"The Traveller:" 

" To men of other minds my fancy flies, 
Imbosom'd in the deep where Holland lies. 
Me thinks her patient sons before me stand, 
Where the broad ocean leans against the land, 
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide, 
Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride. 
Onward, methinks, and diligently slow, 
The firm connected bulwark seems to grow; 
Spreads its long arms amid the watery roar, 
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore. 
Y/bile the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile. 
Sees an amphibious world before him smile; 
The slow canal, the yellow blossom' d vale, 
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail, 
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain, 
-^ A new creation rescued from his reign." 

He remained about a year at Leyden, attending the lectures 
of Gaubius on chemistry and Albinus on anatomy ; though his 
studies are said to have been miscellaneous, and directed to 
literature rather than science. The thirty-three pounds with 
which he had set out on his travels were soon consumed, and 
he was put to many a shift to meet his expenses until Ms pre- 
carious remittances should arrive. He had a good friend on 
these occasions in a fellow-student and countryman, named 
Ellis, who afterward rose to eminence as a physician. He 
used frequently to loan small sums to Goldsmith, which were 
always scrupulously paid. Ellis discovered the innate merits. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. $ 

of the poor awkward' student, and used to declare in after life 
that it was a common remark in Ley den, that in all the pecu- 
liarities of Goldsmith, an elevation of mind was to be noted ; a 
philosophical tone and manner; the feelings of a gentleman, 
and the language and information of a scholar. " 

Sometimes, va his emergencies, Goldsmith undertook to 
teach the English language. It is true he was ignorant of 
the Dutch, but he had a smattering of the French, picked 
up among the Irish priests at Ballymabon. He depicts his 
whimsical embarrassment in this respect, in his account in 
the Vicar of Wakefield of the philosophical vagabond who 
went to Holland to teach the natives English, without know- 
ing a word of their own language. Sometimes, when sorely 
pinched, and sometimes, perhaps, when flush, he resorted to 
the gambling tables, which in those days abounded in Holland. 
His good friend Ellis repeatedly warned him against this un- 
fortunate propensity, but in vain. It brought its own cure, or 
rather its own punishment, by stripping him of every shilling. 

Ellis once more stepped in to his relief with a true Irishman's 
generosity, but with more considerateness than generally char- 
acterizes an Irishman, for he only granted pecuniary aid on 
condition of his quitting the sphere of danger. Goldsmith 
gladly consented to leave Holland, being anxious to visit other 
parts. He intended to proceed to Paris and pursue his studies 
there, and was furnished by his friend with money for the 
journey. Unluckily, he rambled into the garden of a florist 
just before quitting Leyden. The tulip mania was still preva- 
lent in Holland, and some species of that splendid flower 
brought immense prices. In wandering through the garden 
Goldsmith recollected that his uncle Contarine was a tulip 
fancier. The thought suddenly struck him that here was an 
opportunity of testifying, in a delicate manner, his sense of 
that generous uncle's past kindnesses. In an instant his hand 
was in his pocket ; a number of choice and costly tulip-roots 
were purchased and packed up for Mr. Contarine ; and it was 
not until he had paid for them that he bethought himself that 
he had spent all the money borrowed for his travelling ex- 
penses. Too proud, however, to give up his journey, and too 
shamefaced to make another appeal to his friend's liberality, 
he determined to travel on foot, and depend upon chance and 
good luck for the means of getting forward ; and it is said that 
he actually set off on a tour of the Continent, in February, 
1755, with but one spare shirt, a flute, and a single guinea. 



4g biffin GOLDSMITH. 

" Blessed," says one of his biographers, "with a good consti- 
tution, an adventurous spirit, and with that thoughtless, or, 
perhaps, happy disposition which takes no care for to-morrow, 
he continued his travels for a long time in spite of innumerable 
privations." In his amusing narrative of the adventures of a 
"Philosophic Vagabond" in the "Vicar of Wakefield," we 
find shadowed out the expedients he pursued. "I had some 
knowledge of music, with a tolerable voice; I now turned 
what was once my amusement into a present means of sub- 
sistence. I passed among the harmless peasants of Flanders, 
and among such of the French as were poor enough to be very 
merry, for I ever found them sprightly in proportion to their 
wants. Whenever I approached a peasant's house toward 
nightfall, I played one of my merriest tunes, and that pro- 
cured me not only a lodging, but subsistence for the next day ; 
but in truth I must own, whenever I attempted to entertain 
persons of a higher rank, they always thought my perform- 
ance odious, and never made me any return for my endeavors 
to please them. " 

. At Paris he attended the chemical lectures of Rouelle, then 
in great vogue, where he says he witnessed as bright a circle 
of beauty as graced the court of Versailles. His love of 
theatricals, also, led him to attend the performances of the 
celebrated actress Mademoiselle Clairon, with which he was 
greatly delighted. He seems to have looked upon the state of 
society with the eye of a philosopher, but to have read the 
signs of the times with the prophetic eye of a poet. In his 
rambles about the environs of Paris he was struck with the 
immense quantities of game running about almost in a tame 
state; and saw in those costly and rigid preserves for the 
amusement and luxury of the privileged few a sure ' ' badge of 
the slavery of the people." This slavery he predicted was 
drawing toward a close. ' ' When I consider that these parlia- 
ments, the members of which are all created by the court, and 
the presidents of which can only act by immediate direction, 
presume even to mention privileges and freedom, who till of 
late received directions from the throne with implicit humi- 
lity ; when this is considered, I cannot help fancying that the 
genius of Freedom has entered that kingdom in disguise. If 
they have but three weak monarchs more successively on the 
throne, the mask will be laid aside, and the country will 
certainly once more be free." Events have testified to the 
sage forecast of the poet. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 49 

During a brief sojourn in Paris he appear to have gained 
access to valuable society, and to have had the honor and 
pleasure of making the acquaintance of Voltaire ; of whom, in 
after years, he wrote a memoir. " As a companion," says he, 
" no man ever exceeded him when he pleased to lead the con- 
versation ; which, however, was not always the case. In com- 
pany which he either disliked or despised, few could be more 
reserved than he ; but when he was warmed in discourse, and 
got over a hesitating manner, which sometimes he was subject 
to, it was rapture to hear him. His meagre visage seemed 
insensibly to gather beauty: every muscle in it had meaning, 
and his eye beamed with unusual brightness. The person who 
writes this memoir," continues he, ''remembers to have seen 
him in a select company of wits of both sexes at Paris, when 
the subject happened to turn upon English taste and learning. 
Fontenelle (then nearly a hundred years old), who was of the 
party, and who being unacquainted with the language or au- 
thors of the country he undertook to condemn, with a spirit 
truly vulgar began to revile both. Diderot, who liked the 
English^ and knew something of their literary pretensions, 
attempted to vindicate their poetry and learning, but with 
unequal abilities. The company quickly perceived that Fonte- 
nelle was superior in the dispute, and were surprised at the 
silence which Voltaire had preserved all the former part of the 
night, particularly as the conversation happened to turn upon 
one of his favorite topics. Fontenelle continued his triumph 
until about twelve o'clock, when Voltaire appeared at last 
roused from his reverie. His whole frame seemed animated. 
He began his defence with the utmost defiance mixed with 
spirit, and now and then let fall the finest strokes of raillery 
upon his antagonist ; and his harangue lasted till three in the . 
morning. I must confess that, whether from national par- 
tiality or from the elegant sensibility of his manner, I never 
was so charmed, nor did I ever remember so absolute a victory 
as he gained in this dispute." Goldsmith's ramblings took him 
into Germany and Switzerland, from which last mentioned 
country he sent to his brother in Ireland the first brief sketch, 
afterward amplified into his poem of the "Traveller." 

At Geneva he became travelling tutor to a mongrel young 
gentleman, son of a London pawnbroker, who had been sud- 
denly elevated into fortune and absurdity by the death of an 
uncle. The youth, before setting up for a gentleman, had been 
an attorney's apprentice, and was an arrant pettifogger in 



50 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

money matters. Never were two beings more illy assorted 
than he and Goldsmith. We may form an idea of the tutor 
and the pupil from the following extract from the narrative of 
the " Philosophic Vagabond." 

* ' I was to be the young gentleman's governor, but with a 
proviso that he should always be permitted to govern himself. 
My pupil, in fact, understood the art of guiding in money con- 
cerns much better than I. He was heir to a fortune of about 
two hundred thousand pounds, left him by an uncle in the West 
Indies ; and his guardians, to qualify him for the management of 
it had bound him apprentice to an attorney. Thus avarice was 
his prevailing passion ; all his questions on the road were how 
money might be saved — which was the least expensive course 
of travel — whether anything could be bought that would turn 
to account when disposed of again in London. Such curiosities 
on the way as could be seen for nothing he was ready enough 
to look at; but if the sight of them was to be paid for, he 
usually asserted that he had been told that they were not 
worth seeing. He never paid a bill that he would not observe 
how amazingly expensive travelling was ; and all this though 
not yet twenty-one." 

In this sketch Goldsmith undoubtedly shadows forth his an- 
noyances as travelling tutor to this concrete young gentleman, 
compounded of the pawnbroker, the pettifogger, and the West 
Indian heir, with an overlaying of the city miser. They had 
continual difficulties on all points of expense until they reached 
Marseilles, where both were glad to separate. 

Once more on foot, but freed from the irksome duties of 
"bear leader," and with some of his pay, as tutor, in his 
pocket, Goldsmith continued his half-vagrant peregrinations 
through part of France and Piedmont, and some ox the Italian 
States. He had acquired, as has been shown, a habit of shift- 
ing along and living by expedients, and a new one presented 
itself in Italy. "My skill in music," says he, in the Philosophic- 
Vagabond, ! ' could avail me nothing in a country where every 
peasant was a better musician than I; but by this time I had 
acquired another talent, which answered my purpose as well, 
and this was a skill in disputation. In all the foreign univer- 
sities and convents there are, upon certain days, philosophical 
theses maintained against every adventitious disputant; for 
which, if the champion opposes with any dexterity, he can 
claim a gratuity in money, a dinner, and a bed for one night." 
Though a poor wandering scholar, his reception in these 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 51 

learned piles was as free from humiliation as in the cottages of 
the peasantry. " With the members of these establishments," 
said he, "I could converse on topics of literature, and then I 
always forgot the meanness of my circumstances." 

At Padua, where he remained some months, he is said to 
have taken his medical degree. It is probable he was brought 
to a pause in this city by the death of his uncle Contarine, who 
had hitherto assisted him in his wanderings by occasional, 
though, of course, slender remittances. Deprived of this source 
of supplies, he wrote to his friends in Ireland, and especially to 
his brother-in-law, Hod son, describing his destitute situation. 
His letters brought him neither money nor reply. It appears 
from subsequent correspondence that his brother-in-law actu- 
ally exerted himself to raise a subscription for his assistance 
among his relatives, friends, and acquaintance, but without 
success. Their faith and hope in him were most probably at 
an end; as yet he had disappointed them at every point, he 
had given none of the anticipated proofs of talent, and they 
were too poor to support what they may have considered the 
wandering propensities of a heedless spendthrift. 

Thus left to his own precarious resources, Goldsmith gave 
up all further wandering in Italy, without visiting the south, 
though Rome and Naples must have held out powerful attrac- 
tions to one of his poetical cast. Once more resuming his pil- 
grim staff, he turned his face toward England, " walking along 
from city to city, examining mankind more nearly, and seeing 
both sides of the picture." In traversing France his flute— 
his magic flute ! — was once more in requisition, as we may con- 
clude, by the following passage in his Traveller : 

" Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease, 
Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please, 
How often have I led thy sportive choir 
With tuneless pipe beside the murmuring Loire! 
Where shading elms along the margin grew, 
And freshened from the wave the zephyr flew; 
And haply though my harsh note falt'ring still, 
But mocked all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill ; 
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, 
And dance forgetful of the noontide hour. 
Alike all ages: Dames of ancient days 
Have led their children through the mirthful maze, 
And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore, 
Has frisk'd beneath the burden of three-score," 



52 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



CHAPTER VI. 

LANDING IN ENGLAND— SHIFTS OP A MAN WITHOUT MONEY— THE 
PESTLE AND MORTAR— THEATRICALS IN A BARN— LAUNCH UPON 
LONDON — A CITY NIGHT SCENE — STRUGGLES WITH PENURY — 
MISERIES OF A TUTOR — A DOCTOR IN THE SUBURB — POOR PRAC- 
TICE AND SECOND-HAND FINERY— A TRAGEDY IN EMBRYO— PRO- 
JECT OF THE WRITTEN MOUNTAINS. 

After two years spent in roving about the Continent, ' ' pur- 
suing novelty," as he said, "and losing content," Goldsmith 
landed at Dover early in 1756. He appears to have had no 
definite plan of action. The death of his uncle Contarine, and 
the neglect of his relatives and friends to reply to his letters, 
seem to have produced in him a temporary feeling of loneli- 
ness and destitution, and his only thought was to get to Lon- 
don and throw himself upon the world. But how was he to 
get there? His purse was empty. England was to him as 
completely a foreign land as any part of the Continent, and 
where on earth is a penniless stranger more destitute? His 
flute and his philosophy were no longer of any avail ; the Eng- 
lish boors cared nothing for music ; there were no convents ; 
and as to the learned and the clergy, not one of them would 
give a vagrant scholar a supper and night's lodging for the best 
thesis that ever was argued. "You may easily imagine," 
says he, in a subsequent letter to his brother-in-law, "what 
difficulties I had to encounter, left as I was without friends, 
recommendations, money, or impudence, and that in a country 
where being born an Irishman was sufficient to keep me un- 
employed. Many, in such circumstances, would have had 
recourse to the friar's cord or the suicide's halter. But, with 
all my follies, I had principle to resist the one, and resolution 
to combat the other." 

He applied at one place, we are told, for employment in the 
shop of a country apothecary; but all his medical science 
gathered in foreign universities could not gain him the man- 
agement of a pestle- and mortar. He even resorted, it is said, 
to the stage as a temporary expedient, and figured in low com- 
edy at a country town in Kent. This accords with his last 
shift of the Philosophic Vagabond, and with the knowledge of 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 53 

country theatricals displayed in his "Adventures of a Stroll- 
ing Player," or may be a story suggested by them. All tins 
part of his career, however, in which he must have trod the 
lowest paths of humility, are only J :o be conjectured from 
vague traditions, or scraps of autobiography gleaned from his 
miscellaneous writings. 

At length we find him launched on the great metropolis, or 
rather drifting about its streets, at night, in the gloomy month 
of February, with but a few half-pence in his pocket. The 
deserts of Arabia are not more dreary and inhospitable than 
the streets of London at such a time, and to a stranger in such 
a plight. Do we want a picture as an illustration? We have 
it in his own words, and furnished, doubtless, from his own 
experience. 

"The clock has just struck two; what a gloom hangs all 
around! no sound is heard but of the chiming clock, or the 
distant watch-dog. How few appear in those streets, which 
but some few hours ago were crowded! But who are those 
who make the streets their couch, and find a short repose 
from wretchedness at the doors of the opulent? They are 
strangers, wanderers, and orphans, whose circumstances are 
too humble to expect redress, and whose distresses are too 
great even for pity. Some are without the covering even of 
rags, and others emaciated with disease; the world has dis- 
claimed them; society turns its back upon their distress, and 
has given them up to nakedness and hunger. These poor shiv- 
ering femades have once seen happier days, and been flattered 
into beauty. They are now turned out to meet the severity of 
winter. Perhaps now* lying at the doors of their betrayers, 
they sue to w»retches whose hearts are insensible, or debau- 
chees who may curse, but will not relieve them. 

" Why, why was I born a man, and yet see the sufferings of 
wretches I cannot relieve! Poor houseless creatures! The 
world will give you reproaches, but will not give you relief." 

Poor houseless Goldsmith ! we may here ejaculate— to what 
shifts he must have been driven to find shelter and sustenance 
for himself in this his first venture into London ! Many years 
afterward, in the days of his social elevation, he startled [ a 
polite circle at Sir Joshua Eeynolds's by humorously dating an 
anecdote about the time he " lived among the beggars of Axe 
Lane. " Such may have been the desolate quarters with which 
he was fain to content himself when thus adrift upon the town, 
with but a few half-pence in his pocket. '..'....' 



54 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

The first authentic trace we have of him in this new part of 
his career, is filling the situation of an usher to a school, and 
even this employ he obtained with some difficulty, after a ref- 
erence for a character to his friends in the University of Dub- 
lin. In the Vicar of Wakefield he makes George Primrose 
undergo a whimsical catechism concerning the requisites for an 
usher. "Have you been bred apprentice to the business?" 
"No." " Then you won't do for a school. Can you dress the 
boys' hair?" "No." " Then you won't do for a school. Can 
you lie three in a bed?" "No." " Then you will never do for 
a school. Have you a good stomach?" "Yes." "Then you 
will by no means do for a school. I have been an usher in a 
boarding-school myself, and may I die of an anodyne necklace, 
but I had rather be under-turnkey at Newgate. I was up 
early and late ; I was browbeat by the master, hated for my 
ugly face by the mistress, worried by the boys." 

Goldsmith remained but a short time in this situation, and 
to the mortifications experienced there, we doubtless owe the 
picturings given in his writings of the hardships of an usher's 
life. "He is generally, " say s he, "the laughing-stock of the 
school. Every trick is played upon him; the oddity of his 
manner, his dress, or his language, is a fund of eternal ridi- 
cule ; the master himself now and then cannot avoid joining in 
the laugh; and the poor wretch, eternally resenting this ill 
usage, lives in a state of war with all the family." — "He is 
obliged, perhaps, to sleep in the same bed with the French 
teacher, who disturbs liim for an hour every night in papering 
and filleting his hair, and stinks worse than a carrion with his 
rancid pomatums, when he lays his head beside him on the 
bolster." 

His next shift was as assistant in the laboratory of a chemist 
near Fish Street Hill. After remaining here a few months, he 
heard that Dr. Sleigh, who had been his friend and fellow- 
student at Edinburgh, was in London. Eager to meet with a 
friendly face in this land of strangers, he immediately called 
on him; "but though it was Sunday, and it is to be supposed I 
was in my best clothes, Sleigh scarcely knew me— such is the 
tax the unfortunate pay to poverty. However, when he did 
recollect me, I found his heart as warm as ever, and he shared 
his purse and friendship with me during his continuance in 
London." 

Through the advice and assistance of Dr. Sleigh, he now 
commenced the practice of medicine, but in a small way, in 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 55 

Bankside, South wark, and chiefly among the poor; for he 
wanted the figure, address, polish, and management, to succeed 
among the rich. His old schoolmate and college companion, 
Beatty, who used to aid him with his purse at the university, 
met him about this time, decked out in the tarnished finery of 
a second-hand suit of green and gold, with a shirt and neck- 
cloth of a fortnight's wear. 

Poor Goldsmith endeavored to assume a prosperous air in 
the eyes of his early associate. "He was practising physic," 
he said, " and doing very well!" At this moment poverty was 
pinching him to the bone in spite of his practice and his dirty 
finery. His fees were necessarily small, and ill paid, and he 
was fain to seek some precarious assistance from his pen. 
Here his quondam fellow-student, Dr. Sleigh, was again of 
service, introducing him to some of the booksellers, who gave 
him occasional, though starveling, employment. According to 
tradition, however, his most efficient patron just now was a 
journeyman printer, one of his poor patients of Bankside, who 
had formed a good opinion of his talents, and perceived his 
poverty and his literary shifts. The printer was in the employ 
of Mr. Samuel Richardson, the author of Pamela, Clarissa, and 
Sir Charles Grandison; who combined the novelist and the 
publisher, and was in flourishing circumstances. Through the 
journeyman's intervention Goldsmith is said to have become 
acquainted with Richardson, who employed him as reader and 
corrector of the press, at his printing establishment in Salis- 
bury Court ; an occupation which he alternated with his medi- 
cal duties. 

Being admitted occasionally to Richardson's parlor, he began 
to form literary acquaintances, among whom the most impor- 
tant was Dr. Young, the author of Night Thoughts, a poem in 
the height of fashion. It is not probable, however, that much 
familiarity took place at the time between the literary lion of 
the day and the poor iEsculapius of Bankside, the humble cor- 
rector of the press. Still the communion with literary men 
had its effect to set his imagination teeming. Dr. Farr, one of 
his Edinburgh fellow-students, who was at London about this 
time, attending the hospitals and lectures, gives us an amusing 
account of Goldsmith in his literary character. 

' l Early in January he called upon me one morning before I 
was up, and, on my entering the room, I recognized my old 
acquaintance, dressed in a rusty, full-trimmed black suit, with 
his pockets full of papers, which instantly reminded me of the 



56 Oliver doLDsMifH. 

poet in Garrick's farce of Lethe. After we had finished our 
breakfast he drew from his pocket part of a tragedy, which he 
said had been brought for my correction. In vain I pleaded 
inability, when he began to read ; and every part on which I 
expressed a doubt as to the propriety was immediately blotted 
out. I then most earnestly pressed him not to trust to my 
judgment, but to take the opinion of persons better qualified 
to decide on dramatic compositions. He now told me he had 
submitted his productions, so far as he had written, to Mr. 
Eichardson, the author of Clarissa, on which I peremptorily 
declined offering another criticism on the performance." 

From the graphic description given of him by Dr. Farr, it 
will be perceived that the tarnished finery of green and gold 
had been succeeded by a professional suit of black, to which, 
we are told, were added the wig and cane indispensable to 
medical doctors in those days. The coat was a second hand 
one, of rusty velvet, with a patch on the left breast, which he 
adroitly covered with his three-cornered hat during his medical 
visits; and we have an amusing anecdote of his contest of 
courtesy with a patient who persisted in endeavoring to relieve 
him from the hat, which only made him press it more devoutly 
to his heart. 

Nothing further has ever been heard of the tragedy men- 
tioned by Dr. Farr; it was probably never completed. The 
same gentleman speaks of a strange Quixotic scheme which 
Goldsmith had in contemplation at the time, "of going to 
decipher the inscriptions on the written mountains, though he 
was altogether ignorant of Arabic, or the language in which 
they might be supposed to be written. " The salary of three 
hundred pounds," adds Dr. Farr, " which had been left for the 
purpose, was the temptation." This was probably one of 
many dreamy projects with which his fervid brain was apt to . 
teem. On such subjects he was prone to talk vaguely and 
magnificently, but inconsiderately, from a kindled imagination 
rather than a well-instructed judgment.^ He had always a 
great notion of expeditions to the East, and wonders to be seen 
and effected in the oriental countries. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 57 



CHAPTER VII. 

LIFE OF A PEDAGOGUE — KINDNESS TO SCHOOLBOYS— PERTNESS IN 
RETURN — EXPENSIVE CHARITIES — THE GRIFFITHS AND THE 
"MONTHLY REVIEW" — TOILS OF A LITERARY HACK — RUPTURE 
WITH THE GRIFFITHS. 

Among the most cordial of Goldsmith's intimates in London 
during this time of precarious struggle were certain of his 
former fellow-students in Edinburgh. One of these was the 
son of a Doctor Milner, a dissenting minister, who kept a 
classical school of eminence at Peckham, in Surrey. Young 
Milner had a favorable opinion of Goldsmith's abilities and 
attainments, and cherished for him that good will which his 
genial nature seems ever to have inspired among his school 
and college associates. His father falling ill, the young man 
negotiated with Goldsmith to take temporary charge of the 
school. The latter readily consented ; for he was discouraged 
by the slow growth of medical reputation and practice, and as 
yet had no confidence in the coy smiles of the muse. Laying 
by his wig and cane, therefore, and once more wielding the 
ferule, he resumed the character of the pedagogue, and for 
some time reigned as vicegerent over the academy at Peckham. 
He appears to have been well treated by both Dr. Milner and 
his wife, and became a favorite with the scholars from his 
easy, indulgent good nature. He mingled in their sports, told 
them droll stories, played on the flute for their amusement, 
and spent his money in treating them to sweetmeats and other 
schoolboy dainties. His familiarity was sometimes carried too 
far; he indulged in boyish pranks and practical jokes, and 
drew upon himself retorts in kind, which, however, he bore 
with great good humor. Once, indeed, he was touched to the 
quick by a piece of schoolboy pertness. After playing on the 
flute, he spoke with enthusiasm of music, as delightful in itself, 
and as a valuable accomplishment for a gentleman, whereupon 
a youngster, with a glance at his ungainly person, wished to 
know if he considered himself a gentleman. Poor Goldsmith, 
feelingly alive to the awkwardness of his appearance and the 
humility of his situation, winced at this unthinking sneer, 
which long rankled in his mind. 



58 OLIVER Q OLD SMITH. 

As usual, while in Dr. Milner's employ, his benevolent feel- 
ings were a heavy tax upon his purse, for he never could 
resist a tale of distress, and was apt to be fleeced by every 
sturdy beggar; so that, between his charity and his munifi- 
cence, he was generally in advance of his slender salary. 
' ' You had better, Mr. Goldsmith, let me take care of your 
money," said Mrs. Milner one day, "as I do for some of the 
young gentlemen."— "In truth, madam, there is equal need!" 
was the good-humored reply. 

Dr. Milner was a man of some literary pretensions, and wrote 
occasionally for the Monthly Review, of which a bookseller, by 
the name of Griffiths, was proprietor. This work was an 
advocate for Whig principles, and had been in prosperous 
existence for nearly eight years. Of late, however, periodicals 
had multiplied exceedingly, and a formidable Tory rival had 
started up in the Critical Revieiv, published by Archibald Ham- 
ilton, a bookseller, and aided by the powerful and popular pen 
of Dr. Smollett. Griffiths was obliged to recruit his forces. 
While so doing he met Goldsmith, a humble occupant of a seat 
at Dr. Milner's table, and was struck with remarks on men and 
books, which fell from him in the course of conversation. He 
took occasion to sound him privately as to his inclination and 
capacity as a reviewer, and was furnished by him with speci- 
mens of his literary and critical talents. They proved satis- 
factory. The consequence was that Goldsmith once more 
changed his mode of life, and in April, 1757, became a contribu- 
tor to the Monthly Revieiv, at a small fixed salary, with board 
and lodging, and accordingly took up his abode with Mr. 
Griffiths, at the sign of the Dunciad, Paternoster Eow. As 
usual we trace this phase of his fortunes in his semi-fictitious 
writings ; his sudden transmutation of the pedagogue into the 
author being humorously set forth in the case of " George Prim- 
rose," in the "Vicar of Wakefield." "Come," says George's 
adviser, ' k I see you are a lad of spirit and some learning ; 
what do you think of commencing author like me? You have 
read in books, no doubt, of men of genius starving at the 
trade; at present I'll show you forty very dull fellows about 
town that live by it in opulence. All honest, jog-trot men, 
who go on smoothly and dully, and write history and politics, 
and are praised : men, sir, who, had they been bred cobblers, 
would all their lives only have mended shoes, but ne^er made 
them." "Finding" (says George) "that there was no great de- 
gree of gentility affixed to the character of an usher, I resolved 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 59 

fco accept his proposal; and having the highest respect for 
literature, hailed the antiqua mater of Grub Street with rev- 
erence. I thought it my glory to pursue a track which 
Dryden and Otway trod before me." Alas, Dryden struggled 
with indigence all his days ; and Otway, it is said, fell a vic- 
tim to famine in his thirty-fifth year, being strangled by a roll 
of bread, which he devoured with the voracity of a starving* 
man. 

In Goldsmith's experience the track soon proved a thorny 
one. Griffiths was a hard business man, of shrewd, worldly, 
good sense, but little refinement or cultivation. He meddled, , 
or rather muddled with literature, too, in a business way, 
altering and modifying occasionally the writings of his con- 
tributors, and in this he was aided by his wife, who, according 
to Smollett, was ' • an antiquated female critic and a dabbler in 
the Review." Such was the literary vassalage to which Gold- 
smith had unwarily subjected himself. A diurnal drudgery 
was imposed on him, irksome to his indolent habits, and at- 
tended by circumstances humiliating to his pride. He had to 
write daily from nine o'clock until two, and often throughout 
the day; whether in the vein or not, and on subjects dictated 
by his taskmaster, however foreign to his taste ; in a word, he 
was treated as a mere literary hack. But this was not the 
worst ; it was the critical supervision of Griffiths and his wife 
which grieved him: the " illiterate, bookselling Griffiths," as 
Smollett called them, "who presumed to revise, alter, and 
amend the articles contributed to their Revieiv. Thank 
heaven," crowed Smollet, "the Critical Review is not written 
under the restraint of a bookseller and his wife. Its principal 
writers are independent of each other, unconnected with book- 
sellers, and unawed by old women !" 

This literary vassalage, however, did not last long. The 
bookseller became more and more exacting. He accused his 
hack writer of idleness; of abandoning his writing-desk and 
literary workshop at an early hour of the day ; and of assum- 
ing a tone and manner above his situation. Goldsmith, in 
return, charged him with impertinence ; his wife with mean- 
ness and parsimony in her household treatment of him, and 
both of literary meddling and marring. The engagement was 
broken off at the end of five months, by mutual consent, and 
without any violent rupture, as it will be found they afterward 
had occasional dealings with each other. 

Though Goldsmith was now nearly thirty years of age, he 



60 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

had produced nothing to give him a decided reputation. He 
was as yet a mere writer for bread. The articles he had con- 
tributed to the Review were anonymous, and were never 
avowed by him. They have since been, for the most part, 
ascertained ; and though thrown off hastily, often treating on 
subjects of temporary interest, and marred by the Griffith in- 
terpolations, they are still characterized by his sound, easy 
good sense, and the genial graces of his style; Johnson ob- 
served that Goldsmith's genius flowered late ; he should have 
said it flowered early, but was late in bringing its fruit to 
maturity. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

NEWBERY, OF PICTURE-BOOK MEMORY — HOW TO KEEP UP AP- 
PEARANCES — MISERIES OP AUTHORSHIP— A POOR RELATION- 
LETTER TO HODSON. 

Being now known in the publishing world, Goldsmith began 
to find casual employment in various quarters ; among others 
he wrote occasionally for the Literary Magazine, a production 
set on foot by Mr. John Newbery, bookseller, St. Paul's 
Churchyard, renowned in nursery literature throughout the 
latter half of the last century for his picture-books for children. 
Newbery was a worthy, intelligent, kind-hearted man, and a 
seasonable though cautious friend to authors, relieving them 
with small loans when in pecuniary difficulties, though always 
taking care to be well repaid by the labor of their pens. Gold- 
smith introduces him in a humorous yet friendly manner in 
his novel of the Vicar of Wakefield. ' ' This person was no 
other than the philanthropic bookseller in St. Paul's Church- 
yard, who has written so many little books for children ; he 
called himself their friend ; but he was the friend of all man- 
kind. He was no sooner alighted but he was in haste to be 
gone ; for he was ever on business of importance, and was at 
that time actually compiling materials for the history of one 
Mr. Thomas Trip. I immediately recollected this good-natured 
man's red-pimpled face." 

Besides his literary job work, Goldsmith also resumed his 
medical practice, but with very trifling success. The scanti- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. (3.1 

ness of his purse still obliged him to live in obscure lodgings 
somewhere in. the vicinity of Salisbury Square, Fleet Street ; 
but his extended acquaintance and rising importance caused 
him to consult appearances. He adopted an expedient, then 
very common, and still practised in London among those who 
have to tread the narrow path between pride and poverty; 
while he burrowed in lodgings suited to his means, he "hailed," 
as it is termed, from the Temple Exchange Coffee-house near " 
Temple Bar. Here he received his medical calls; hence he. 
dated his letters, and here he passed much of his leisure hours, 
conversing with the frequenters of the place. ' ' Thirty pounds 
a year," said a poor Irish painter, who understood the art of 
shifting, " is enough to enable a man to live in London with- 
out being contemptible. Ten pounds will find him in clothes 
and linen ; he can live in a garret on eighteen pence a week ; 
hail from a coffee-house, where, by occasionally spending 
threepence, he may pass some hours each day in good com- 
pany ; he may breakfast on bread and milk for a penny ; dine 
for sixpence; do without supper; and on clean-shirt-day he 
may go abroad and pay visits." 

Goldsmith seems to have taken a leaf from this poor devil's 
manual in respect to the coffee-house at least. Indeed, coffee- 
houses in those days were the resorts of wits and literati, where 
the topics of the day were gossiped over, and the affairs of 
literature and the drama discussed and criticised. In this way 
he enlarged the circle of his intimacy, which now embraced 
several names of notoriety. 

Do we want a picture of Goldsmith's experience in this part 
of his career? we have it in his observations on the life of an 
author in the " Inquiry into the state of polite learning" pub- 
lished some years afterward. 

"The author, unpatronized by the great, has naturally re- 
course to the bookseller. There cannot, perhaps, be imagined 
a combination more prejudicial to taste than this. It is the in- 
terest of the one to allow as little for writing, and for the other 
to write as much as possible ; accordingly tedious compilations 
and periodical magazines are the result of their joint endeavors. 
In these circumstances the author bids adieu to fame; writes 
for bread; and for that only imagination is seldom called in. 
He sits down to address the venal muse with the most phleg- 
matic apathy ; and, as we are told of the Russian, courts his 
mistress by falling asleep in her lap." 

Again. "Those who are unacquainted with the world are 



(32 OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 

apt to fancy the man of wit as leading a very agreeable life. 
They conclude, perhaps, that he is attended with silent admi- 
ration, and dictates to the rest of mankind with all the elo- 
quence of conscious superiority. Very different is his present 
situation. He is called an author, and all know that an author 
is a thing only to be laughed at. His person, not his jest, be- 
comes the mirth of the company. At his approach the most 
fat, unthinking face brightens into malicious meaning. Even 
aldermen laugh, and avenge on him the ridicule which was 
lavished on their forefathers. . . . The poet's poverty is a 
standing topic of contempt. His writing for bread is an un- 
pardonable offence. Perhaps of all mankind, an author in 
these times is used most hardly. We keep him poor, and yet 
revile his poverty. We reproach him for living by his wit, 
and yet allow him no other means to live. His taking refuge 
in garrets and cellars has of late been violently objected to 
him, and that by men who, I hope, are more apt to pity than 
insult his distress. Is poverty a careless fault? No doubt he 
knows how to prefer a bottle of champagne to the nectar of 
the neighboring ale-house, or a venison pasty to a plate of po- 
tatoes. Want of delicacy is not in him, but in those who deny 
him the opportunity of making an elegant choice. Wit cer- 
tainly is the property of those who have it, nor should we be 
displeased if it is the only property a man sometimes has. We 
must not underrate him who uses it for subsistence, and flees 
from the ingratitude of the age, even to a bookseller for re- 
dress." . . . 

" If the author be necessary among us, let us treat him with 
proper consideration as a child of the public, not as a rent- 
charge on the community. And indeed a child of the public 
he is in all respects ; for while so well able to direct others, hov/ 
incapable is he frequently found of guiding himself. His sim- 
plicity exposes him to all the insidious approaches of cunning ; 
his sensibility, to the slightest invasions of contempt. Though 
possessed of fortitude to stand unmoved the expected bursts 
of an earthquake, yet of feelings so exquisitely poignant as to 
agonize under the slightest disappointment. Broken rest, 
tasteless meals, and causeless anxieties shorten life, and render 
it unfit for active employments ; prolonged vigils and intense 
application still farther contract his span, and make his time 
glide insensibly away." 

While poor Goldsmith was thus struggling with the difficul- 
ties and discouragements which in those days beset the path of 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 63 

an author, his friends in Ireland received accounts of his lite- 
rary success and of the distinguished acquaintances he was 
making. This was enough to put the wise heads at Lissoy and 
Ballymahon in a ferment of conjectures. With the exaggera- 
ted notions of provincial relatives concerning the family great 
man in the metropolis, some of Goldsmith's poor kindred pic- 
tured him to themselves seated in high places, clothed in purple 
and line linen, and hand and glove with the giver of gifts and 
dispensers of patronage. Accordingly, he was one day sur- 
prised at the sudden apparition, in his miserable lodging, of his 
younger brother Charles, a raw youth of twenty-one, endowed 
with a double share of the family heedlessness, and who ex- 
pected to be forthwith helped into some snug by-path to for- 
tune by one or other of Oliver's great friends. Charles was 
sadly disconcerted on learning that, so far from being able to 
provide for others, his brother could scarcely take care of him- 
self. He looked round with a rueful eye on the poet's quarters, 
and could not help expressing his surprise and disappointment 
at finding him no better off. "All in good time, my dear 
boy," replied poor Goldsmith, with infinite good-humor; "I 
shall be richer by and by. Addison, let me tell you, wrote his 
poem of the ' Campaign ' in a garret in the Haymarket, three 
stories high, and you see I am not come to that yet, for I have 
only got to the second story." 

Charles Goldsmith did not remain long to embarrass his bro- 
ther in London. With the same roving disposition and incon- 
siderate temper of Oliver, he suddenly departed in an humble 
capacity to seek his fortune in the West Indies, and nothing 
was heard of him for above thirty years, when, after having 
been given up as dead by his friends, he made Ms reappearance 
in England. 

Shortly after his departure, Goldsmith wrote a letter to his 
brother-in-law, Daniel Hodson, Esq. , of which the following is 
an extract ; it was partly intended, no doubt, to dissipate any 
further illusions concerning his fortunes which might float on 
the magnificent imagination of his friends in Ballymahon. 

"I suppose you desire to know my present situation. As 
these is nothing in it at which I should blush, or which man- 
kind could censure, I see no reason for making it a secret. *In 
short, by a very little practice as a physician, and a very little 
reputation as a poet, I make a shift to live. Nothing is more 
apt to introduce us to the ^ptes of the muses than poverty ; but 
|| were well if they only left us at the door, The mischief 



64 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

is they sometimes choose to give us their company to the 
entertainment; and want, instead of being gentleman-usher, 
often turns master of the ceremonies. 

"Thus, upon learning I write, no doubt you imagine I starve ; 
and the name of an author naturally reminds you of a garret. 
In this particular I do not tliink proper to undeceive my 
friends. But, whether I eat or starve, live in a first floor or 
four pairs of stairs high, I still remember them with ardor ; nay, 
my very country comes in for a share of my affection. Un- 
accountable fondness for country, this maladie du pais, as the 
French call it! Unaccountable that he should still have an 
affection for a place, who never, when in it, received above 
common civility ; who never brought anything out of it except 
his brogue and his blunders. Surely my affection is equally 
ridiculous with the Scotchman's, who refused to be cured of the 
itch because it made him unco' thoughtful of his wife and 
bonny Inverary. 

' ' But now, to be serious : let me ask myself what gives me a 
wish to see Ireland again. The country is a fine one, perhaps? 
No. There are good company in Ireland? No. The conversa- 
tion there is generally made up of a smutty toast or a bawdy 
song ; t2ie vivacity supported by some humble cousin, who had 
just folly enough to earn his dinner. Then, perhaps, there is 
more wit and learning among the Irish? Oh, Lord, no! There 
has been more money spent in the encouragement of the Pada- 
reen mare there one season, than given in rewards to learned 
men since the time of Usher. All their productions in learning 
amount to perhaps a translation, or a few tracts in divinity; 
and all their productions in wit to just nothing at all. Why 
.the plague, then, so fond of Ireland? Then, all at once, be- 
cause you, my dear friend, and a few more who are exceptions 
to the general picture, have a residence there. This it is that 
gives me all the pangs I feel in separation. I confess I carry 
this spirit sometimes to the souring the pleasures I at present 
possess. Is I go to the opera, where Signora Columba pours 
out all the mazes of melody, I sit and sigh for Lissoy fireside, 
and Johnny Armstrong's ' Last Good-night ' from Peggy Gol- 
den. If I climb Hampstead Hill, than where natoire never ex- 
hibited a more magnificent prospect, I confess it fine ; but then 
I had rather be placed on the little mount before Lissoy gate, 
and there take in, to me, the most pleasing horizon in nature. 

" Before Charles came hither my thoughts sometimes found 
refuge from severer studies among my friends in Ireland, J 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 65 

fancied strange revolutions at home ; but I find it was the ra- 
pidity of my own motion that gave an imaginary one to ob- 
jects really at rest. No alterations there. Some friends, he 
tells me, are still lean, but very rich ; others very fat, but still 
very poor. Nay, all the news I hear of you is, that you sally 
out in visits among the neighbors, and sometimes make a mi- 
gration from the blue bed to the brown. I could from my 
heart wish that y®u and she (Mrs. Hodson) and Lissoy and 
Ballymahon, and all of you, would fairly make a migration 
into Middlesex ; though, upon second thoughts, this might be 
attended with a few inconveniences. Therefore, as the moun- 
tain will not come to Mohammed, why Mohammed shall go to 
the mountain ; or, to speak plain English, as you cannot con- 
veniently pay me a visit, if next summer I can contrive to be 
absent six weeks from London, I shall spend three of them 
among my friends in Ireland. But first, believe me, my de- 
sign is purely to visit, and neitlaer to cut a figure nor levy con- 
tributions ; neither to excite envy nor solicit favor ; in fact, my 
circumstances are adapted to neither. I am too poor to be 
gazed at, and too rich to need assistance. " 



CHAPTER IX. 

HACKNEY AUTHORSHIP— THOUGHTS OF LITERARY SUICIDE— RE- 
TURN TO PECKHAM — ORIENTAL PROJECTS — LITERARY ENTER- 
PRISE TO RAISE FUNDS— LETTER TO EDWARD WELLS— TO 
ROBERT BRYANT0N— DEATH OF UNCLE CONTARINE — LETTER TO 
COUSIN JANE. 

For some time Goldsmith continued to write miscellaneously 
for reviews and other periodical publications, but without mak- 
ing any decided hit, to use a technical term. Indeed, as yet he 
appeared destitute of the strong excitement of literary ambi- 
tion, and wrote only on the spur of necessity and at the urgent 
importunity of his bookseller. His indolent and truant dispo- 
sition, ever averse from labor and delighting in holiday, had 
to be scourged up to its task ; still it was this very truant dis- 
position which threw an unconscious charm over everything 
he wrote; bringing with it honeyed thoughts and pictured 
images which had sprung up in his mind in the sunny hours of 



66 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

idleness : these effusions, dashed off on compulsion in the exi- 
gency of the moment, were published anonymously; so that 
they made no collective impression on the public, and reflected 
no fame on the name of their author. 

In an essay published some time subsequently in the Bee, 
Goldsmith adverts, in his own humorous way, to his 
impatience at the tardiness with which his desultory and 
unacknowledged essays crept into notice. "I was once 
induced," says he, " to show my indignation against the pub- 
lic by discontinuing my efforts to please; and was bravely 
resolved, like Ealeigh, to vex them by burning my manu- 
scripts in a passion. Upon reflection, however, I considered 
what set or body of people would be displeased at my rashness. 
The sun, after so sad an accident, might shine next morning 
as bright as usual ; men might laugh and sing the next day, 
and transact business as before ; and not a single creature feel 
any regret but myself. Instead of having Apollo in mourn- 
ing or the Muses in a fit of the spleen ; instead of having the 
learned world apostrophizing at my untimely decease; per- 
haps all Grub Street might laugh at my fate, and self -approv- 
ing dignity be unable to shield me from ridicule." 

Circumstances occurred about this time to give a new direc- 
tion to Goldsmith's hopes and schemes. Having resumed for 
a brief period the superintendence of the Peckham school 
during a fit of illness of Dr. Milner, that gentleman, in 
requital for his timely services, promised to use his influence 
with a friend, an East India director, to procure him a medical 
appointment in India. 

There was every reason to believe that the influence of Dr. 
Mikier would be effectual ■ but how was Goldsmith to find the 
ways and means of fitting himself out for a voyage to the 
Indies? In this emergency he was driven to a more extended 
exercise of the pen than he had yet attempted. His skirmish- 
ing among books as a reviewer, and his disputatious ramble 
among the schools and universities and literati of the Con- 
tinent, had filled his mind with facts and observations which 
he now set about digesting into a treatise of some magnitude, 
to be entitled, " An Inquiry into the Present State of Polite 
Learning in Europe." As the work grew on his hands his 
sanguine temper ran ahead of his labors. Feeling secure of 
success in England, he was anxious to forestall the piracy of 
the Irish press ; for as yet, the union not having taken place, 
the English law of copyright did not extend to the other side 



OLIVER GOLDSMITK 67 

of the Irish Channel. He wrote, therefore, to his friends in 
Ireland, urging them to circulate his proposals for his contem- 
plated work, and obtain subscriptions payable in advance; 
the money to be transmitted to a Mr. Bradley, an eminent 
bookseller in Dublin, who would give a receipt for it and be 
accountable for the delivery of the books. The letters written 
by him on this occasion are worthy of copious citation as 
being full of character and interest. One was to his relative 
and college intimate, Edward Wells, who had studied for 
the bar, but was now living at ease on his estate on Ros- 
common. "You have quitted," writes Goldsmith, "the plan 
of life which you once intended to pursue, and given up 
ambition for domestic tranquillity. I cannot avoid feeling 
some regret that one of my few friends has declined a pursuit 
in which he had every reason to expect success. I have often 
let my fancy loose when you were the subject, and have 
imagined you gracing the bench, or thundering at the bar; 
while I have taken no small pride to myself, and whispered to 
all that I could come near, that this was my cousin. Instead 
of this, it seems, that you are merely contented to be a happy 
man; to be esteemed by your acquaintances; to cultivate 
your paternal acres ; to take unmolested a nap under one of 
your own hawthorns or in Mrs. Wells's bedchamber, which 
even a poet must confess is rather the more comfortable place 
of the two. But, however your resolutions may be altered 
with regard to your situation in life, I persuade myself they 
are unalterable with respect to your friends in it. I cannot 
think the world has taken such entire possession of that heart 
(once so susceptible of friendship) as not to have left a corner 
there for a friend or two, but I flatter myself that even I have 
a place among the number. This I have a claim to from the 
similitude of our dispositions; or setting that aside, I can 
demand it as a right by the most equitable law of nature; I 
mean that of retaliation ; for indeed you have more than your 
share in mine. I am a man of few professions ; and yet at this 
very instant I cannot avoid the painful apprehension that my 
present professions (which speak not half my feelings) should 
be considered only as a pretext to cover a request, as I have a 
request to make. No, my dear Ned, I know you are too 
generous to think so, and you know me too proud to stoop to 
unnecessary insincerity — I have a request, it is true, to make, 
but as I know to whom I am a petitioner, I make it without 
diffidence or confusion. It is in short this, I am going to pub- 



68 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

lish a book in London," etc. The residue of the letter specifies 
the nature of the request, which was merely to aid in circulat- 
ing his proposals and obtaining subscriptions. The letter of 
the poor author, however, was unattended to and unac- 
knowledged by the prosperous Mr. Wells, of Roscommon, 
though in after years he was proud to claim relationship to Dr. 
Goldsmith, when he had risen to celebrity. 

Another of Goldsmith's letters was to Robert Bryanton, 
with whom he had long ceased to be in correspondence. "I 
believe," writes he, " that they who are drunk, or out of their 
wits, fancy everybody else in the same condition. Mine is a 
friendship that neither distance nor time can efface, which is 
probably the reason that, for the soul of me, I can't avoid 
thinking yours of the same cemplexion ; and yet I have many 
reasons for being of a contrary opinion, else why, in so long 
an absence, was I never made a partner in your concerns? 
To hear of your success would have given me the utmost 
pleasure ; and a communication of your very disappointments 
would divide the uneasiness I too frequently feel for my own. 
Indeed, my dear Bob, you don't conceive how unkindly you 
have treated one whose circumstances afford him few pros- 
pects of pleasure, except those reflected from the happiness of 
his friends. However, since you have not let me hear from 
you, I have in some measure disappointed your neglect by 
frequently thinking of you. Every day or so I remember the 
calm anecdotes of your life, from the fireside to the easy chair; 
recall the first adventures that first cemented our friendship ; 
the school, the college, or the tavern; preside in fancy over 
your cards; and am displeased at your bad play when the 
rubber goes against you, though not with all that agony of 
soul as when I was once your partner. Is it not strange that 
two of such like affections should be so much separated, and 
so differently employed as we are? You seem placed at the 
centre of fortune's wheel, and, let it revolve never so fast, are 
insensible of the motion. I seem to have been tied to the cir- 
cumference, and whirled disagreeably round, as if on a whirli- 
gig." 

He then runs into a whimsical and extravagant tirade about 
his future prospects, the wonderful career of fame and for- 
tune that awaits him ; and after indulging in all kinds of humor- 
ous gasconades, concludes: "Let me, then, stop my fancy to 
take a view of my future self — and, as the boys say, light down 
%o see myself on horseback. Well, now that I am down, where 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 69 

the d — 1 is 1% Oh gods! gods! here in a garret, writing for 
bread, and expecting to be dunned for a milk score !" 

He would, on this occasion, have doubtless written to his 
uncle Contarine, but that generous friend was sunk into 
a helpless hopeless state from which death soon released 
him. 

Cut off thus from the kind co-operation of his uncle, he ad- 
dresses a letter to his cousin Jane, the companion of his 
school-boy and happy days, now the wife of Mr. Lawder. The 
object was to secure her interest with her husband in promoting 
the circulation of his proposals. The letter is full of character. 

; ' If you should ask," he begins, "why, in an interval of so 
many years, you never heard from me, permit me, madam, to 
ask the same question. I have the best excuse in recrimination. 
I wrote to Kilmore from Leyden in Holland, from Louvain in 
Flanders, and Rouen in France, but received no answer. To 
what could I attribute this silence but to displeasure or f orgetful- 
ness? Whether I was right in my conjecture I do not pretend 
to determine ; but this I must ingenuously own, that I have a 
thousand times in my turn endeavored to forget them, whom I 
could not but look upon as forgetting trie. I have attempted to 
blot their names from my memory, and, I confess it, spent whole 
days in efforts to tear their image from my heart. Could I have 
succeeded, you had not now been troubled with this renewal of 
a discontinued correspondence ; but, as every effort the restless 
make to procure sleep serves but to keep them waking, all my 
attempts contributed to impress what I would forget deeper on 
my imagination. But this subject I would willingly turn from, 
and yet, 'for the soul of me,' I can't till I have said all. I was, 
madam, when I discontinued writing to Kilmore, in such cir- 
cumstances that all my endeavors to continue your regards 
might be attributed to wrong motives. My letters might be 
looked upon as the petitions of a beggar, and not the offerings 
of a friend ; while all my professions, instead of being consid- 
ered as the result of disinterested esteem, might be ascribed to 
venal insincerity. I believe, indeed, you had too much gener- 
osity to place them in such a light, but I could not bear even 
the shadow of such a suspicion. The most delicate friendships 
are always most sensible of the slightest invasion, and the 
strongest jealousy is ever attendant on the warmest regard. I 
could not — I own I could not— continue a correspondence in 
which every acknowledgment for past favors might be consid- 
ered as an indirect request for future ones ; and where it might 



70 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

be thought I gave my heart from a motive of gratitude alone, 
when I was conscious pf having bestowed it on much more dis- 
interested principles, fit is true, this conduct might have been 
simple enough ; but yourself must confess it was in character. 
Those who know me at all, know that I have always been actu- 
ated by different principles from the rest of mankind: and 
while none regarded the interest of his friend more, no man on 
earth regarded kis own less. I have often affected bluntness to 
avoid the imputation of flattery ; have frequently seemed to 
overlook those merits too obvious to escape notice, and pre- 
tended disregard to those instances of good nature and good 
sense, which I could not fail tacitly to applaud ; and all this 
lest I should be ranked among the grinning tribe, who say 
1 very true ' to all that is said ; who fill a vacant chair at a tea- 
table ; whose narrow souls never moved in a wider circle than 
the circumference of a guinea ; and who had rather be reckon- 
ing the money in your pocket than the virtue in your breast. 
All this, I say, I have done, and a thousand other very silly, 
though very disinterested, things in my time, and for all which 
no soul cares a farthing about me. . . . Is it to be wondered 
that he should once in his lif e forget you,- who has been all his 
life forgetting himself?) However, it is probable you may one 
of these days see me turned into a perfect hunks, and as dark 
and intricate as a mouse-hole. I have already given my land- 
lady orders for an entire reform in the state of my finances. I 
declaim against hot suppers, drink less sugar in my tea, and 
check my grate with brickbats. Instead of hanging my room 
with pictures, I intend to adorn it with maxims of frugality. 
Those will make pretty furniture enough, and won't be a bit 
too expensive ; for I will draw them all out with my own hands, 
and my landlady's daughter shall frame them with the parings 
of my black waistcoat. Each maxim is to be inscribed on a 
sheet of clean paper, and wrote with my best pen ; of which the 
following will serve as a specimen. Look sharp : Mind the main 
chance : Money is money now : If you have a thousand pounds 
you can put your hands by your sides, and say you are worth a 
thousand pounds every day of the year : Take a farthing from 
a hundred and it ivill he a hundred no longer. Thus, which 
way soever I turn my eyes, they are sure to meet one of those 
friendly monitors ; and as we are told of an actor who hung his 
room round with looking-glass to correct the defects of his per- 
son, my apartment shall be furnished in a peculiar manner, to 
correct the errors of my mind. Faith 1 madam, I heartily wish 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. VI 

to be rich, if it were only for this reason, to say without a 
blush how much I esteem you. But, alas! I have many a 
fatigue to encounter before that happy time comes, when your 
poor old simple friend may again give a loose to the luxuriance 
of his nature ; sitting by Kilmore fireside, recount the various 
adventures of a hard-fought life ; laugh over the follies of the 
day ; join his flute to your harpsichord ; and forget that ever 
he starved in those streets where Butler and Otway starved be- 
fore him. And now I mention those great names — my uncle ! 
he is no more that soul of fire as when I once knew him. New- 
ton and Swift grew dim with age as well as he. But what shall 
I say? His mind was too active an inhabitant not to disorder 
the feeble mansion of its abode : for the richest jewels soonest 
wear their settings. Yet who but the fool would lament his 
condition ! He now forgets the calamities of life. Perhaps in- 
dulgent Heaven has given him a foretaste of that tranquillity 
here, which he so well deserves hereafter. But I must come to 
business ; for business, as one of my maxims tells me, must be 
minded or lost. I am going to publish in London a book en- 
titled 'The Present State of Taste and Literature in Europe.' 
The booksellers in Ireland republish every performance there 
without making the author any consideration. I would, in 
this respect, disappoint their avarice and have all the profits of 
my labor to myself. I must therefore request Mr. Lawder to 
circulate among his friends and acquaintances a hundred of my 
proposals which I have given the bookseller, Mr. Bradley, in 
Dame Street, directions to send to him. If, in pursuance of 
such circulation, he should receive any subscriptions, I entreat, 
when collected, they may be sent to Mr. Bradley, as aforesaid, 
who will give a receipt, and be accountable for the work, or a 
return of the subscription. If ^this request (which, if it be com- 
plied with, will in some measure be an encouragement to a man 
of learning) should be disagreeable or troublesome, I would not 
press it ; for I would be the last man on earth to have my 
labors go a-begging; but if I know Mr. Lawder (and sure I 
ought to know him), he will accept the employment with pleas- 
ure. All I can say — if he writes a book, I will get him two 
hundred subscribers, and those of the best wits in Europe. 
Whether this request is complied with or not, I shall not be 
uneasy ; but there is one petition I must make to him and to 
you, which I solicit with the warmest ardor, and in which I 
cannot bear a refusal. I mean, dear madam, that I may be 
allowed to subscribe myself, your ever affectionate and obliged 



72 OLIVEH GOLDSMITH, 

kinsman, Oliver Goldsmith. Now see how I blot and blun- 
der, when I am asking a favor." 



CHAPTER X. 

ORIENTAL APPOINTMENT— AND DISAPPOINTMENT— EXAMINATION 
AT THE COLLEGE OF SURGEONS— HOW TO PROCURE A SUIT OF 
CLOTHES— FRESH DISAPPOINTMENT — A TALE OF DISTRESS — THE 
SUIT OF CLOTHES IN PAWN — PUNISHMENT FOR DOING AN ACT 
OF CHARITY — GAYETIES OF GREEN ARBOR COURT — LETTER TO 
HIS BROTHER — LIFE OF VOLTAIRE — SCROGG1N, AN ATTEMPT AT 
MOCK-HEROIC POETRY. 

While Goldsmith was yet laboring at his treatise, the pro- 
mise made him by Dr. Milner was carried into effect, and he 
was actually appointed physician and surgeon to one of the 
factories on the coast of Coromandel. His imagination was 
immediately on fire with visions of Oriental wealth and mag- 
nificence. It is true the salary did not exceed one hundred 
pounds, but then, as appointed physician, he would have the 
exclusive practice of the place, amounting to one thousand 
pounds per annum ; with advantages to be derived from trade, 
and from the high interest of money — twenty per cent ; in a 
word, for once in his life, the road to fortune lay broad and 
straight before him. 

Hitherto, in his correspondence with his friends, he had said 

♦nothing of his India scheme ; but now he imparted to them his 

brilliant prospects, urging the importance of their circulating 

his proposals and obtaining him subscriptions and advances on 

his forthcoming work, to furnish funds for his outfit. 

In the mean time he had to task that poor drudge, his muse, 
for present exigencies. Ten pounds were demanded for his 
appointment-warrant. Other expenses pressed hard upon 
him. Fortunately, though as yet unknown to fame, his 
literary capability was known to "the trade," and the coinage 
of his brain passed current in Grub Street. Archibald Hamil- 
ton, proprietor of the Critical Review, the rival to that of Grif- 
fiths, readily made him a small advance on receiving three 
articles for his periodical. His purse thus slenderly replen- 
ished, Goldsmith paid for his warrant ; wiped off the score of 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 73 

his milkmaid ; abandoned his garret, and moved into a shabby 
first floor in a forlorn court near the Old Bailey ; there to await 
the time for bis migration to the magnificent coast of Coro- 
mandel. 

Alas! poor Goldsmith! ever doomed to disappointment. 
Early in the gloomy month of November, that month of fog 
and despondency in London, he learned the shipwreck of his 
hope. The great Coromandel enterprise fell through ; or rather 
the post promised to him was transferred to some other candi- 
date. The cause of this disappointment it is now impossible to 
ascertain. The death of his quasi patron, Dr. Milner, which 
happened about this time, may have had some effect in pro- 
ducing it; or there may have been some heedlessness and 
blundering on his own part; or some obstacle arising from 
his insuperable indigence; whatever may have been the 
cause, he never mentioned it, which gives some ground to 
surmise that he himself was to blame. His friends learned 
with surprise that he had suddenly relinquished his appoint- 
ment to India about which he had raised such sanguine expec- 
tations; some accused him of fickleness and caprice; others 
supposed him unwilling to tear himself from the growing fasci- 
nations of the literary society of London. 

In the mean time, cut down in his hopes, and humiliated in 
his pride by the failure of his Coromandel scheme, he sought, 
without consulting his friends, to be examined at the College of 
Physicians for the humble situation of hospital mate. Even 
here poverty stood in his way. It was necessary to appear in 
a decent garb before the examining committee ; but how was 
he to do so? He was literally out at elbows as well as out of 
cash. Here again the muse, so often jilted and neglected by 
him, came to his aid. In consideration of four articles fur- 
nished to the Monthly Review, Griffiths, his old taskmaster, 
was to become his security to the tailor for a suit of clothes. 
Goldsmith said he wanted them but for a single occasion, on 
which depended his appointment to a situation in the army; as 
soon as that temporary purpose was served they would either 
be returned or paid for. The books to be reviewed were ac- 
cordingly lent to him ; the muse was again set to her compul- 
sory drudgery; the articles were scribbled off and sent to the 
bookseller, and the clothes came in due time from the tailor. 

From the records of the College of Surgeons, it appears that 
Goldsmith underwent his examination at Surgeons' Hall on the 
21st of December, 1758, 



^4 OLIVER GOLDSMim. 

Either from a confusion of mind incident to sensitive and 
imaginative persons on such occasions, or from a real want of 
surgical science, which last is. extremely probable, he failed in 
his examination, and was rejected as unqualified. The effect 
of such a rejection was to disqualify him for every branch of 
public service, though he might have claimed a re-examina- 
tion, after the interval of a few months devoted to further 
study. Such a re-examination he never attempted, nor did he 
ever communicate his discomfiture to any of his friends. 

On Christmas day, but four days after his rejection by the 
College of Surgeons, while he was suffering under the mortifi- 
cation of defeat and disappointment, and hard pressed for 
means of subsistence, he was surprised by the entrance into his 
room of the poor woman of whom he hired his wretched apart- 
ment, and to whom he owed some small arrears of rent. She 
had a piteous tale of distress, and was clamorous in her afflic- 
tions. Her husband had been arrested in the night for debt, 
and thrown into prison. This was too much for the quick 
feelings of Goldsmith; he was ready at any time to help the 
distressed, but in this instance he was himself in some measure 
a cause of the distress. What was to be done? He had no 
money, it is true ; but there hung the new suit of clothes in 
which he had stood his unlucky examination at Surgeons' 
Hall. Without giving himself time for reflection, he sent it off 
to the pawnbroker's, and raised thereon a. sufficient sum to pay 
off his own debt, and to release his landlord from prison. 

Under the same pressure of penury and despondency, he 
borrowed from a neighbor a pittance to relieve his immediate 
wants, leaving as a security the books which he had recently 
reviewed. In the midst of these straits and harassments, he re- 
ceived a letter from Griffiths demanding in peremptory terms 
the return of the clothes and books, or immediate payment for 
the same. It appears that he had discovered the identical suit 
at the pawnbroker's. The reply of Goldsmith is not known; 
it was out of his power to furnish either the clothes or the 
money ; but he probably offered once more to make the muse 
stand his bail. His reply only increased the ire of the wealthy 
man of trade, and drew from him another letter still more 
harsh than the first, using the epithets of knave and sharper, 
and containing threats of prosecution and a prison. 

The following letter from poor Goldsmith gives the most touch- 
ing picture of an inconsiderate but sensitive man, harassed by 
care, stung by humiliations, and driven almost to despondency. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. % 

a $iR: I know of no misery but a jail to which my own im- 
prudences and your letter seem to point. I have seen it inevi- 
table these three or four weeks, and, by heavens ! request it as 
a favor— as a favor that may prevent something more fatal. I 
have been some years struggling with a wretched being— with 
all that contempt that indigence brings with it— with all those 
passions which make contempt insupportable. What, then,- 
-has a jail that is formidable? I shall at least have the society 
r of wretches, and such is to me true society. " I tell you, again 
and again, that I am neither able nor willing to pay you a 
farthing, but I will be punctual to any appointment you or the 
tailor shall make ; thus far, at least, I do not act the sharper, 
since, unable to pay my own debts one way, I would generally 
give some security another. No, sir; had I been a sharper- 
had I been possessed of less good-nature and native generosity, 
I might surely now have been in better circumstances. 

" I am guilty, I own, of meannesses which poverty unavoid- 
ably brings with it ; my reflections are filled with repentance 
for my imprudence, but not with any remorse for being a vil- 
lain ; that may be a character you unjustly charge me with. 
Your books, I can assure you, are neither pawned nor sold, 
but in the custody of a friend, from whom my necessities 
obliged me to borrow some money ; whatever becomes <jf my 
person, you shall have them in a month. It is very possible 
both the reports you have heard and your own suggestions 
may have brought you false information with respect to my 
character ; it is very possible that the man whom you now 
regard with detestation may inwardly burn with grateful re- 
sentment. It is very possible that, upon a second perusal of 
the letter I sent you, you may see the workings of a mind 
strongly agitated with gratitude and jealousy. If such cir- 
cumstances should appear, at least spare invective till my book 
with Mr. Dodsley shall be published, and then, perhaps, you 
may see the bright side of a mind, when my professions shall 
not appear the dictates of necessity, but of choice. 

'You seem to think Dr. Milner knew me not. Perhaps so; 
but he was a man I shall ever honor; but I have friendships 
only with the dead ! I ask pardon for taking up so much time ; 
nor shall I add to it by any other professions than that I am, 
sir, your humble servant 

' ' Oliver Goldmith. 
"P.S.— I shall expect impatiently the result of your resolu- 
tions." 



76 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

The dispute between the poet and the publisher was after- 
ward imperfectly adjusted, and it would appear that the 
clothes were paid for by a short compilation advertised by 
Griffiths in the course of the following month ; but the parties 
were never really friends afterwards, and the writings of Gold- 
smith were harshly and unjustly treated in the Monthly Re- 
view. 

We have given the preceding anecdote in detail, as furnish- 
ing one of the many instances in which Goldsmith's prompt 
and benevolent impulses outran all prudent forecast, and in- 
volved him in difficulties and disgraces, which a more selfish 
man would have avoided. The pawning of the clothes, charged 
upon him as a crime by the grinding bookseller, and apparently 
admitted by him as one of "the meannesses which poverty 
unavoidably brings with it," resulted, as we have shown, from 
a tenderness of heart and generosity of hand in which another 
man would have gloried ; but these were such natural elements 
with him, that he was unconscious of their merit. It is a pity 
that wealth does not oftener bring such "meannesses" in its 
train. 

And now let us be indulged in a few particulars about these 
lodgings in which Goldsmith was guilty of this thoughtless act 
of -benevolence. They were in a very shabby house, No. 12 
Green Arbor Court, between the Old Bailey and Fleet Market. 
An old woman was still living in 1820 who was a relative of the 
identical landlady whom Goldsmith relieved by the money re- 
ceived from the pawnbroker. She was a child about seven 
years of age at the time that the poet rented his apartment of 
her relative, and used frequently to be at the house in Green 
Arbor Court. She was drawn there, in a great measure, by 
the good-humored kindness of Goldsmith, who was always ex- 
ceedingly fond of the society of children. He used to assemble 
those of the family in his room, give them cakes and sweet- 
meats, and set them dancing to the sound of his flute. He was 
very friendly to those around him, and. cultivated a kind of 
intimacy with a watchmaker in the Court, who possessed 
much native wit and humor. He passed most of the day, 
however, in his room, and only went out in the evenings. His 
days were no doubt devoted to the drudgery of the pen, and 
it would appear that he occasionally found the booksellers 
urgent taskmasters. On one occasion a visitor was shown up 
to his room, and immediately their voices were heard in high 
altercation, and the key was turned within the lock. The 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 77 

landlady, at first, was disposed to go to the assistance of her 
lodger ; but a calm succeeding, she forbore to interfere. 

Late in the evening the door was unlocked ; a supper ordered 
by the visitor from a neighboring tavern, and Goldsmith and 
his intrusive guest finished the evening in great good-humor. 
It was probably his old taskmaster Griffiths, whose press 
might have been waiting, and who found no other mode of 
getting a stipulated task from Goldsmith than by locking him 
in, and staying by him until it was finished. 

But we have a more particular account of these lodgings in 
Green Arbor Court from the Rev. Thomas Percy, afterward 
Bishop of Dromore, and celebrated for his relics of ancient 
poetry, his beautiful ballads, and other works. During an 
occasional visit to London, he was introduced to Goldsmith by 
Grainger, and ever after continued one of his most steadfast 
and valued friends. The following is his description of the 
poet's squalid apartment: u I called on Goldsmith at his lodg- 
ings in March, 1759, and found him writing his ' Inquiry ' in a 
miserable dirty -looking room, in which there was but one 
chair ; and when, from civility, he resigned it to me, he him- 
self was obliged to sit in the window. While we were con- 
versing together some one tapped gently at the door, and being 
desired to come in, a poor, ragged little girl, of a very be- 
coming demeanor, entered the room, and dropping a courte- 
sy, said, * My mamma sends her compliments and begs the 
favo~ of you to lend her a chamber-pot full of coals.' " 

We are reminded in this anecdote of Goldsmith's picture of 
the lodgings of Beau Tibbs, and of the peep into the secrets of a 
makeshift establishment given to a visitor by the blundering 
old Scotch woman. 

' ' By this time we were arrived as high as the stairs would 
permit us to ascend, till we came to what he was facetiously 
pleased to call the first floor down the chimney; and, knocking 
at the door, a voice from within demanded 'Who's there?' 
My conductor answered that it was him. But this not satisfy- 
ing the querist, the voice again repeated the demand, to which 
he answered louder than before ; and now the door was opened 
by an old woman with cautious reluctance. 

"When we got in he welcomed me to his house with great 
ceremony ; and, turning to the old woman, asked where was 
her lady. 'Good troth,' replied she, in a peculiar dialect, 
' she's washing your twa shirts at the next door, because they 
Jiave taken an oath against lending tjie tub any longer,' ' My 



78 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

two shirts,' cried he, in a. tone that faltered with confusion; 
' what does the idiot mean? ' f I ken what I mean weel enough, 
replied the other ; ' she's washing your twa shirts at the next 
door, because — ' ' Fire and fury ! no more of thy stupid ex- 
planations,' cried he; 'go and inform her we have company. 
Were that Scotch hag to be for ever in my family, she would 
never learn politeness, nor forget that absurd poisonous accent 
of hers, or testify the smallest specimen of breeding or high 
life ; and yet it is very surprising too, as I had her from a Par- 
liament man, a friend of mine from the Highlands, one of thei 
politest men in the world ; but that's a secret.'" * 

Let us linger a little in G-reen Arbor Court, a place conse- 
crated by the genius and the poverty of Goldsmith, but re- 
cently obliterated in the course of modern improvements. The 
writer of this memoir visited it not many years since on a 
literary pilgrimage, and may be excused for repeating a de- 
scription of it which he has heretofore inserted in another 
publication.. ' ' It then existed in its pristine state, and was a 
small square of tall and miserable houses, the very intestines 
of which seemed turned inside out, to judge from the old gar- 
ments and frippery that fluttered from every window. It ap- 
peared to be a region of washerwomen, and lines were stretched 
about the little square, on which clothes were dangling to dry. 

' ' Just as we entered the square, a scuffle took place between 
two viragoes about a disputed right to a washtub, and im- 
mediately the whole community was in a hubbub. Heads in 
mob-caps popped out of every window, and such a clamor of 
tongues ensued that I was fain to stop my ears. Every amazon 
took part with one or other of the disputants, and brandished 
her arms, dripping with soapsuds, and fired away from her 
- window as from the embrasure of a fortress; while the screams 
of children nestled and cradled in every procreant chamber of 
this hive, waking with the noise, set up their shrill pipes to 
swell the general concert."! 

While in these forlorn quarters, suffering under extreme de- 
pression of spirits, caused by his failure at Surgeons' Hall, the 
disappointment of his hopes, and his harsh collisions with 
Griffiths, Goldsmith wrote the following letter to his brother 
Henry, some parts of which are most touchingly mournful. 



* Citizen of the World, Letter ij, 
t Tftles of $ Tr£vePer ; 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. ,;, 

"Dear Sir: Your punctuality in answering a man whose 
trade is writing, is more than I had reason to expect ; and yet 
you see me generally fill a whole sheet, which is all the re- 
compense I can make for being so frequently troublesome. 
The behavior of Mr. Wells and Mr. Lawder is a little extraor- 
dinary. However, their answering neither you nor me is a 
sufficient indication of their disliking the employment which I 
assigned them. As their conduct is different from what I had 
expected, so I have made an alteration in mine. I shall, the 
beginning of next month, send over two hundred and fifty 
books,* which are all that I fancy can be well sold among you, 
and I would have you make some distinction in the persons 
who have subscribed. The money, which will amount to sixty 
pounds, may be left with Mr. Bradley as soon as possible. I 
am not certain but I stiall quickly have occasion for it. 

"I have met with no disappointment with respect to my 
East India voyage, nor are my resolutions altered ; though, at 
the same time, I must confess, it gives me some pain to tljink 
I am almost beginning the world at the age of thirty-one. 
Though I never had a day's sickness since I saw you, yet I am 
not that strong, active man you once knew me. You scarcely 
can conceive how much eight years of disappointment, an- 
guish, and study have worn me down. If I remember right 
you are seven or eight years older than me, yet I dare 
venture to say, that, if a stranger saw us both, he would pay 
me the honors of seniority. Imagine to yourself a pale, 
melancholy visage, with two great wrinkles between the eye- 
brows, with an eye disgustingly severe, and a big wig ; and 
you may have a perfect picture of my present appearance. On 
the other hand, I conceive you as perfectly sleek and healthy, 
passing many a happy day among your own children or those 
who knew you a child. 

"Since I knew what it was to be a man, this is a pleasure I 
have not known. I have passed my days among a parcel of 
cool, designing beings, and have contracted all their suspicious 
manner in my own behavior. I should actually be as unfit for 
the society of my friends at home, as I detest that which I am 
obliged to partake of here. I can now neither partake of the 
pleasure of a revel, nor contribute to raise its jollity. I can 
neither laugh nor drink; have contracted a hesitating, dis- 

* The Inquiry into Polite Literature. His previous remarks apply to the sub- 
scription. 



80 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

agreeable manner of speaking, and a visage that looks ill- 
nature itself; in short, I have thought myself into a settled 
melancholy, and an utter disgust of all that life brings with it. 
Whence this romantic turn that all our family are possessed 
with? Whence this love for every place and every country 
but that in which we reside — for every occupation but our 
own? this desire of fortune, and yet this eagerness to dissipate? 
I perceive, my dear sir, that I am at intervals for indulging 
this splenetic manner, and following my own taste, regardless 
of yours. 

"The reasons you have given me for breeding up your son a 
scholar are judicious and convincing; I should, however, be 
glad to know for what particular profession he is designed. If 
he be assiduous and divested of strong passions (for passions 
in youth always lead to pleasure), he may do very well in your 
college ; for it must be owned that the industrious poor have 
good encouragement there, perhaps better than in any other 
in.Europe. But if he has ambition, strong passions, and an 
exquisite sensibility of contempt, do not send him there, unless 
you have no other trade for him but your own. It is impossi- 
ble to conceive how much may be done by proper education at 
home. A boy, for instance, who understands perfectly well 
Latin, French, arithmetic, and the principles of the civil law, 
and can write a fine hand, has an education that may qualify 
him for any undertaking ; and these parts of learning should 
be carefully inculcated, let him be designed for whatever call- 
ing he" will. 

" Above all things, let him never touch a romance or novel; 
these paint beauty in colors more charming than nature, and 
describe happiness that man never tastes. How delusive, how 
destructive, are those pictures of consummate bliss! They 
teach the youthful mind to sigh after beauty and happiness 
that never existed; to despise the little good which fortune has 
mixed in our cup, by expecting more than she ever gave ; and, 
in general, take the word of a man who has seen the world, 
and who has studied human nature more by experience than 
precept ; take my word for it, I say, that books teach us very 
little of the world. The greatest merit in a state of poverty 
would only serve to make the possessor ridiculous — may dis- 
tress, but cannot relieve him. Frugality, and even avarice, in 
the lower orders of mankind, are true ambition. These afford 
the only ladder for the poor to rise to preferment. Teach 
then, my dear sir, to your son, thrift and economy. Let his 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. gj 

poor wandering uncle's example be placed before his eyes. I 
had learned from books to be disinterested and generous, 
before I was taught from experience the necessity of being 
prudent. I had contracted the habits and notions of a phi- 
losopher, while I was exposing myself to the approaches of 
insidious cunning ; and often by being, even with my narrow 
finances, charitable to excess, I forgot the rules of justice, and 
placed myself in the very situation of the wretch who thanked 
me for my bounty. When I am in the remotest part of the 
world, tell him this, and perhaps he may improve from my 
example. But I find myself again falling into my gloomy 
habits of thinking. 

"My mother, I am informed, is almost blind; even though I 
had the utmost inclination to return home, under such circum- 
stances I could not, for to behold her in distress without a 
capacity of relieving her from it, would add much to my 
splenetic habit. Your last letter was much too short; it 
should have answered some queries I had made in my former. 
Just sit down as I do, and write forward until you have filled 
all your paper. It requires no thought, at least from the ease 
with which my own sentiments rise when they are addressed 
to you. For, believe me, my head has no share in all I write ; 
my heart dictates the whole. Pray give my love to Bob Bry- 
anton, and entreat him from me not to drink. My dear sir, 
give me some account about poor Jenny.* Yet her husband 
loves her ; if so, she cannot be unhappy. 

"I know not whether I should tell you— yet. why should I 
conceal these trifles, or, indeed, anything from you? There is 
a book of mine will be published in a few days: the life of a 
very extraordinary man; no less than the great Voltaire. 
You know already by the title that it is no more than a. 
catch-penny. However, I spent but four weeks on the whole- 
performance, for which I received twenty pounds. When, 
published, I shall take some method of conveying it to you, 
unless you may think it dear of the postage, which may! 
amount to four or five shillings. However, I fear you will not 
find an equivalent of amusement. 

"Your last letter, I repeat it, was too short; you should 
have given me your opinion of the design of the heroi-comical 
poem which I sent you. You remember I intended to intro- 

* His sister, Mrs. Johnston; her marriage, Jjlke that of Mrs, Hodson, was private, 
but in pecuniary matters much less fortunate. 



Q2 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

duce the hero of the poem as lying in a paltry alehouse. You 
may take the following specimen of the manner, which I flat- 
ter myself is quite original. The room in which he lies may 
be described somewhat in this way : 

" ' The window, patched with paper, lent a ray 
That feebly show'd the state in which he lay; 
The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread, 
The humid wall with paltry pictures spread; 
The game of goose was there exposed to view, 
And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew; 

The Seasons, framed with listing, found a place, j 

And Prussia's monai'ch show'd his lamp black face. 
The morn was cold: he views with keen desire 
A rusty grate unconscious of a fire ; 
An unpaid reckoning on the frieze was scored, 
And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney board.' 

" And now imagine, after his soliloquy, the landlord to make 
his appearance in order to dun him for the reckoning: 

" l Not with that face, so servile and so gay, 
That welcomes every stranger that can pay: 
With sulky eye he smoked the patient man, 
Then pull'd his breeches tight, and thus began,' etc.* 

"AH this is taken, you see, from nature. It is a good 
remark of Montaigne's, that the wisest men often have friends 
with whom they do not care how much they play the fool. 
Take my present follies as instances of my regard. Poetry is 
a much easier and more agreeable species of composition than 
prose; and could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant 
employment to be a poet. I am resolved to leave no space, 
though I should fill it up only by telling you, what you very 
well know already, I mean that I am your most affectionate 
friend and brother, 

"Oliver Goldsmith." 

The Life of Voltaire, alluded to in the latter part of the 
preceding letter, was the literary job undertaken to satisfy the 
demands of Griffiths. It was to have preceded a translation 
of the Henriade, by Ned Purdon, Goldsmith's old schoolmate, 
now a Grub Street writer, who starved rather than lived by 
the exercise of his pen, and often tasked Goldsmith's scanty 
means to relieve his hunger. His miserable career was 
summed up by our poet in the following lines written some 

* The projected poem, of which the above were specimens, appeal's never to 

have been completed. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 83 

years after the time we are treating of, on hearing that he had 
suddenly dropped dead in Smithfield : 

" Here lies poor NediPurdon, from misery freed, 
Who long was a bookseller's hack; 
He led such a damnable life in this world, 
I don't think he'll wish to come back." 

The memoir and translation, though advertised to form a 
volume, were not published together ; but appeared separately 
in a magazine. 

As to the heroi-comical poem, also, cited in the foregoing 
letter, it appears to have perished in embryo. Had it been 
brought to maturity we should have had further traits of 
autobiography ; the room already described was probably his 
own squalid quarters in Green Arbor Court ; and in a subse- 
quent morsel of the poem we have the poet himself, under the 
euphonious name of Scroggin: 

" Where the lied Lion peering o'er the way, 
Invites each passing stranger that can pay; 
Where Calvert's butt and Parson's black champaigns 
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury Lane : 
There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug, 
The muse found Scroggin stretch'd beneath a rug; 
A nightcap deck'd his brows instead of bay, 
A cap by night, a stocking all the day!" 

It is to be regretted that this poetical conception was not 
carried out; like the author's other writings, it might have 
abounded with pictures of lif e and touches of nature drawn 
from his own observation and experience, and mellowed by 
his own humane and tolerant spirit ; and might have been a 
worthy companion or rather contrast to his ' ' Traveller" and 
"Deserted Village," and have remained in the language a 
first-rate specimen of the mock-heroic. 



CHAPTER XI. 

PUBLICATION OF " THE INQUIRY" — ATTACKED BY GRIFFITHS' RE- 
VIEW— KENRICK THE LITERARY ISHMAELITE— PERIODICAL LIT- 
ERATURE — GOLDSMITH'S ESSAYS — GARRICK AS A MANAGER — 
SMOLLETT AND HIS SCHEMES — CHANGE OF LODGINGS — THE 
ROBIN HOOD CLUB. 

Toward the end of March, 1759, the treatise on which GoM* 
smith had laid so much stress, on which he at one time had 



84 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

calculated to defray the expenses of his outfit to India, and to 
which he had adverted in his correspondence with Griffiths, 
made its appearance. It was published by the Dodsleys, and 
entitled "An Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning 
in Europe." 

In the present day, when the whole field of contemporary 
literature is so widely surveyed and amply discussed, and 
when the current productions of every country are constantly 
collated and ably criticised, a treatise like that of Goldsmith 
would be considered as extremely limited and unsatisfactory ; 
but at that time it possessed novelty in its views and wideness 
in its scope, and being indued with the peculiar charm of style 
inseparable from the author, it commanded public attention 
and a profitable sale. As it was the most important pro- 
duction that had yet come from Goldsmith's pen, he was 
anxious to have the credit of it ; yet it appeared without his 
name on the title-page. The authorship, however, was well 
known throughout the world of letters, and the author had 
now grown into sufficient literary importance to become an 
object of hostility to the underlings of the press. One of the 
most virulent attacks upon him was in a criticism on this 
treatise, and appeared in the Monthly Review, to which he 
himself had been recently a contributor. It* slandered him as 
a man while it decried him as an author, and accused him, 
by innuendo, of "laboring under the infamy of having, by the 
vilest and meanest actions, forfeited all pretensions to honor 
and honesty," and of practising "those acts which bring the 
sharper to the cart's tail or the pillory." 

It will be remembered that the Review was owned by 
Griffiths the bookseller, with whom Goldsmith had recently 
had a misunderstanding. The criticism, therefore, was no 
doubt dictated by the fingerings of resentment ; and the impu- 
tations upon Goldsmith's character for honor and honesty, 
and the vile and mean actions hinted at, could only allude to 
the unfortunate pawning of the clothes. All this, too, was 
after Griffiths had received the affecting letter from Gold- 
smith, drawing a picture of his poverty and perplexities, and 
after the latter had made him a literary compensation. 
Griffiths, in fact, was sensible of the falsehood and extrava- 
gance of the attack, and tried to exonerate himself by 
declaring that the criticism was written by a person in his 
employ ; but we see no difference in atrocity between him who 
.wields the knife and him who hires the cut-throat. It may-be 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. gj 

well, however, in passing, to bestow our mite of notoriety 
upon the miscreant who launched the slander. He deserves 
it for a long course of dastardly and venomous attacks, not 
merely upon Goldsmith, but upon most of the successful 
authors of the day. His name was Kenrick. He was origi- 
nally a mechanic, but, possessing some degree of talent and 
industry, applied himself to literature as a profession. This 
he pursued for many years, and tried his hand in every 
department of prose and poetry ; *he wrote plays and satires, 
philosophical tracts, critical dissertations, and works on phi- 
lology ; nothing from his pen ever rose to first-rate excellence, 
or gained him a popular name, though he received from some 
university the degree of Doctor of Laws. Dr. Johnson 
characterized his literary career in one short sentence. "Sir, 
he is one of the many who have made themselves public with- 
out making themselves known." 

Soured by his own want of success, jealous of the success of 
others, his natural irritability of temper increased by habits 
of intemperance, he at length abandoned himself to the 
practice of reviewing, and became one of the Ishmaelites of 
the press. In this his malignant bitterness soon gave him 
a notoriety which his talents had never been able to attain. 
We shall dismiss him for the present with the following sketch 
of him by the hand of one of his contemporaries : 

" Dreaming of genius which he never had, 
Half wit, half fool, half critic, and half mad ; 
Seizing, like Shirley, on the poet's lyre, 
With all his rage, hut not one spark of fire ; 
Eager for slaughter, and resolved to tear 
From others' brows that wreath he must not wear — 
Next Kenrick came: all furious and replete 
With brandy, malice, pertness, and conceit; 
| Unskill'd in classic lore, through envy blind 

To all that's beauteous, learned, or refined; 
For faults alone behold the savage prowl, 
With reason's offal glut his ravening soul; 
Pleased with his prey, its inmost blood he drinks, 
And mumbles, paws, and turns it — till it stinks." 

The British press about this time was extravagantly fruitful 
of periodical publications. That " oldest inhabitant," the Gen- 
tleman's Magazine, almost coeval with St. John's gate which 
graced its title-page, had long been elbowed by magazines and 
reviews of all kinds ; Johnson's Eambler had introduced the 
fashion of periodical essays, which he had followed up in his 
Adventurer and Idler. Imitations had sprung up on every 



86 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

side, under every variety of name ; until British literature was 
entirely overrun by a weedy and transient efflorescence. Many 
of these rival periodicals choked each other almost at the out- 
set, and few of them have escaped oblivion. 

Goldsmith wrote for some of the most successful, such as 
the Bee, the Busy-Body, and the Lady's Magazine. His es- 
says, though characterized by his delightful style, his pure, 
benevolent morality, and his mellow, unobtrusive humor, did 
not produce equal effect at first with more garish writings of 
infinitely less value ; they did not "strike," as it is termed; 
but they had that rare and enduring merit which rises in esti- 
mation on every perusal. They gradually stole upon the 
heart of the public, were copied into numerous contemporary 
publications, and now they are garnered up among the choice 
productions of British literature. 

In his Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning, Goldsmith 
had given offence to David Garrick, at that time the autocrat 
of the Drama, and was doomed to experience its effect. A 
clamor had been raised against Garrick for exercising a des- 
potism over the stage, and bringing forward nothing but old 
plays to the exclusion of original productions. Walpole joined 
in this charge. "Garrick," said he, "is treating the town as 
it deserves and likes to be treated ; with scenes, fireworks, and 
his own writings. A. good new play I never expect to see 
more; nor have seen since the Provoked Husband, which 
came out when I was at school." Goldsmith, who was ex- 
tremely fond of the theatre, and felt the evils of this system, 
inveighed in his treatise against the wrongs experienced 
by authors at the hands of managers. "Our poet's perform- 
ance," said he, "must undergo a process truly chemical before 
it is presented to the public. It must be tried in the manager's 
i fire ; strained through a licenser, suffer from repeated correc- 
• tions, till it may be a mere caput mortuum when it arrives 
- before the public." Again. " Getting a play on even in three 
or four years is a privilege reserved only for the happy few 
who have the arts of courting the manager as well as the muse ; 
who have adulation to please his vanity, powerful patrons to 
support their merit, or money to indemnify disappointment. 
Our Saxon ancestors had but one name for a wit and a witch. 
I will not dispute the propriety of uniting those characters 
then ; but the man who under present discouragements ven- 
tures to write for the stage, whatever claim he may have to 
the appellation of a wit, at least has no right to be caller 1 a 



OLtVEH GOLDSMITH, ffi 

Conjurer. ** But a passage perhaps which touched more sensi- 
bly than all the rest on the sensibilities of Garrick, was the 
following. 

"I have no particular spleen against the fellow who sweeps 
the stage with the besom, or the hero who brushes it with his 
train. It were a matter of indifference to me whether our 
heroines are in keeping, or our candle-snuffers burn their 
fingers, did not such make a great part of public care and 
polite conversation. Our actors assume all that state off the 
stage which they do on it ; and, to use an expression borrowed 
from the green-room, every one is up in his part. I am sorry 
to say it, they seem to forget their real characters." 

These strictures were considered by Garrick as intended for 
himself, and they were rankling in his mind when Goldsmith 
waited upon him and solicited his vote for the vacant secre- 
taryship of the Society of Arts, of "which the manager was a 
member. Garrick, puffed up by his dramatic renown and his 
intimacy with the great, and knowing Goldsmith only by his 
budding reputation, may not have considered him of sufficient 
importance to be conciliated. In reply to his solicitations, he 
observed that he could hardly expect his friendly exertions 
after the unprovoked attack he had made upon his manage- 
ment. Goldsmith replied that he had indulged in no person- 
alities, and had only spoken what he believed to be the truth. 
He made no further apology nor application ; failed to get the 
appointment, and considered Garrick his enemy. In the 
second edition of his treatise he expunged or modified the 
passages which had given the manager offence ; but though 
the author and actor became intimate in after years, this false 
step at the outset of their intercourse was never forgotten. 

About this time Goldsmith engaged with Dr. Smollett, who 
was about to launch the British Magazine, Smollett was a 
complete schemer and speculator in literature, and intent upon 
enterprises that had money rather than reputation in view. 
Goldsmith has a good-humored hit at this propensity in one 
of his papers in the Bee, in which he represents Johnson, 
Hume, and others taking seats in the stage-coach bound for 
Fame, while Smollett prefers that destined for Eiches. 

Another prominent employer of Goldsmith was Mr. John 
Newbery, who engaged him to contribute occasional essays to 
a newspaper entitled the Public Ledger, which made its first 
appearance on the 12th of January, 1760. His most valuable 
and characteristic contributions to this paper were his Chinese 



88 OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 

Letters, subsequently modified into the Citizen of the World. 
These lucubrations attracted general attention ; they were re- 
printed in the various periodical publications of the day, and 
met with great applause. The name of the author, however, 
was as yet but little known. 

Being now in easier circumstances, and in the receipt of fre- 
quent sums from the booksellers, Goldsmith, about the middle 
of 1760, emerged from his dismal abode in Green Arbor Court, 
and took respectable apartments in Wine-Office Court, Fleet 
Street. 

Still he continued to look back with considerate benevolence 
to the poor hostess, whose necessities he had relieved by pawn- 
ing his gala coat, for we are told that "he often supplied her 
with food from his own table, and visited her frequently with 
the sole purpose to be kind to her." 

He now became a member of a debating club, called the 
Robin Hood, which used to meet near Temple Bar, and in 
which Burke, while yet a Temple student, had first tried his 
powers. Goldsmith spoke here occasionally, and is recorded 
in the Robin Hood archives as "a candid disputant, with a 
clear head and an honest heart, though coming but seldom to 
the society." His relish was for clubs of a more social, jovial 
nature, and he was never fond of argument. An 'amusing 
anecdote is told of his first introduction to the club, by Samuel 
Derrick, an Irish acquaintance of some humor. On entering, 
Goldsmith was struck with the self-important appearance of 
the chairman ensconced in a large gilt chair. " This," said he, 
"must be the Lord Chancellor at least." "No, no," replied 
Derrick, "he's only master of the rolls.'''' — The chairman was a 
baker. 



CHAPTER XII. 

NEW LODGINGS— VISITS OF CEREMONY— HANGERS-ON— PILKING- 
TON AND THE WHITE MOUSE— INTRODUCTION TO DR. JOHNSON 
— DAVIES AND HIS BOOKSHOP— PRETTY MRS. DA VIES— FOOTE 
AND HIS PROJECTS— CRITICISM OF THE CUDGEL. 

In his new lodgings in Wine-Office Court, Goldsmith began 
to receive visits of ceremony, and to entertain his literary 
friends. Among the latter he now numbered several names of 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 89 

note, such as Guthrie, Murphy, Christopher Smart, and Bick- 
erstaff. He had also a numerous class of hangers-on, the 
small-fry of literature ; who, knowing his almost utter incapa- 
city to refuse a pecuniary request, were apt, now that he was 
considered flush, to levy continual taxes upon his purse. 

Among others, one Pilkington, an old college acquaintance, 
but now a shifting adventurer, duped him in the most ludi- 
crous manner. He called on him with a face full of perplexi- 
ty. A lady of the first rank having an extraordinary fancy 
for curious animals, for which she was willing to give enor- 
mous sums, he had procured a couple of white mice to be for- 
warded to her from India. They were actually on board of a 
ship in the river. Her grace had been apprised of their 
arrival, and was all impatience to see them. Unfortunately, 
he had no cage to put them in, nor clothes to appear in before 
a lady of her rank. Two guineas would be sufficient for his 
purpose, but where were two guineas to be procured ! 

The simple heart of Goldsmith was touched; but, alas! he 
had but half a guinea in his pocket. It was unfortunate ; but 
after a pause his friend suggested, with some hesitation, "that 
money might be raised upon his watch ; it would but be the 
loan of a few hours." So said, so done; the watch was de- 
livered to the worthy Mr. Pilkington to be pledged at a neigh- 
boring pawnbroker's, but nothing farther was ever seen of 
him, the watch, or the white mice. The next that Goldsmith 
heard of the poor shifting scapegrace, he was on his death- 
bed, starving with want, upon which, forgetting or forgiving 
the trick he had played upon him, he sent him a guinea. In- 
deed, he used often to relate with great humor the foregoing 
anecdote of his credulity, and was ultimately in some degree 
indemnified by its suggesting to him the amusing little story 
of Prince Bonbennin and the White Mouse in the Citizen of the 
World. 

In this year, Goldsmith became personally acquainted with 
Dr. Johnson, toward whom he was drawn by strong sympa- 
thies, though their natures were widely different. Both had 
struggled from early life with poverty, but had struggled in 
different ways. Goldsmith, buoyant, heedless, sanguine, toler- 
ant of evils and easily pleased, had shifted along by any tem- 
porary expedient ; cast down at every turn, but rising again 
with indomitable good-humor, and still carried forward by his 
talent at hoping. Johnson, melancholy, and hypochondriacal, 
and prone to apprehend the worst, yet sternly resolute to 



90 * OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

battle with and conquer it, had made his way doggedly and 
gloomily, but with a noble principle of self-reliance and a dis- 
regard of foreign aid. Both had been irregular at 'college, — 
Goldsmith, as we have shown, from the levity of his nature 
and his social and convivial habits ; Johnson, from his acerbity 
and gloom. When, in after life, the latter heard himself 
spoken of as gay and frolicsome at college, because he had 
joined in some riotous excesses there, "Ah, sir!" replied he, 
"I was mad and violent. It was bitterness which they mis- 
took for frolic I ivas miserably poor, and I thought to fight 
my way by my literature and my wit. So I disregarded all 
power and all authority." 

Goldsmith's poverty was never accompanied by bitterness ; 
but neither was it accompanied by the guardian pride which 
kept Johnson from falling into the degrading shifts of poverty. 
Goldsmith had an unfortunate facility at borrowing, and help- 
ing himself along by the contributions of his friends ; no doubt 
trusting, in his hopeful way, of one day making retribution. 
Johnson never hoped, and therefore never borrowed. In his 
sternest trials he proudly bore the ills he could not master. In 
his youth, when some unknown friend, seeing his shoes com- 
pletely worn out, left a new pair at his chamber door, he dis- 
dained to accept the boon, and threw them away. 

Though like Goldsmith an immethodical student, he had 
imbibed deeper draughts of knowledge, and made himself a 
riper scholar. While Goldsmith's happy constitution and 
genial humors carried him abroad into sunshine and enjoy- 
ment, Johnson's physical infirmities and mental gloom drove 
him upon himself ; to the resources of reading and meditation ; 
threw a deeper though darker enthusiasm into his mind, and 
stored a retentive memory with all kinds of knowledge. 

After several years of youth passed in the country as usher, 
teacher, and an occasional writer for the press, Johnson, when 
twenty-eight years of age, came ujTto London with a half- 
written tragedy in his pocket; and David Garrick, late his 
pupil, and several years his junior, as a companion, both poor 
and penniless, both, like Goldsmith, seeking their fortune in 
the metropolis. "We rode and tied," said Garrick sportively 
in after years of prosperity, when he spoke of their humble 
wayfaring. "I came to London," said Johnson, "with two- 
pence halfpenny in my pocket." "Eh, what's that you say?" 
cried Garrick, "with twopence halfpenny in your pocket?" 
"Why, yes; I came with twopence halfpenny in. my pocket, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 91 

and thou, Davy, with but three halfpence in thine." Nor was 
there much exaggeration in the picture; for so poor were they 
in purse and credit, that after their arrival they had, with diffi- 
culty, raised five pounds, by giving their joint note to a book- 
seller in the Strand. 

Many, many years had Johnson gone on obscurely m London, 
k < fighting his way by his literature and his wit;" enduring all* 
^hardships and miseries of a Grub Street writer ; so desti- 
tute at one time, that he and Savage the poet had walked all 
night about St. James's Square, both too poor to pay for a^ 
night's lodging, yet both full of poetry and patriotism, and^ 
determined to stand by their country; so shabby in dress at 
another time, that when he dined at Cave's, his bookseller, 
when there was prosperous company, he could not make his 
appearance at table, but had his dinner handed to him behind 

a screen. . 

Yet through all the long and dreary struggle, often diseased 
in mind as well as in body, he had been resolutely self-depen- 
dent, and proudly self -respectful ; he had fulfilled his college 
vow,' he had "fought his way by his literature and his wit." 
His ' ■ Rambler" and ' ' Idler" had made him the great moralist 
of the age, and his "Dictionary and History of the English 
Language," that stupendous monument of individual labor, 
had excited the admiration of the learned world. He was now 
at the head of intellectual society; and had become as dis- 
tinguished by his conversational as his literary powers. He 
had become as much an autocrat in his sphere as his fellow- 
wayfarer and adventurer Garrick had become of the stage, 
and had been humorously dubbed by Smollett, "The Great. 
Cham of Literature." • 

Such was Dr. Johnson, when on the 31st of May, 1761, he 
was to make his appearance as a guest at a literary supper 
oiven by Goldsmith, to a numerous party at his new lodgings , 
hi Wine-Office Court. It was the opening of their acquaint-^ 
ance Johnson had felt and acknowledged the merit of Gold- 
smith as an author, and been pleased by the honorable mention 
made of himself in the Bee and the "Chinese Letters." Dr. 
Percy called upon Johnson to take him to Goldsmith's lodgings ; 
he found Johnson arrayed with unusual care in a new suit oi 
clothes, a new hat, and a well-powdered wig; and could not 
but notice his uncommon spruceness. 'Why, sir," replied 
Johnson, "I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven, 
justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by quoting 



92 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

my practice, and I am desirous this night to show him a better 
example." 

The acquaintance thus commenced ripened into intimacy in 
the course of frequent meetings at the shop of Davies, the 
bookseller, in Russell Street, Covent Garden. As this was one 
of the literary .gossiping places of the day, especially to the 
circle over which Johnson presided, it is worthy of some 
specification. Mr. Thomas Davies, noted in after times as the 
biographer of Garrick, had originally been on the stage, and 
though a small man had enacted tyrannical tragedy, with a 
pomp and magniloquence beyond his size, if we may trust the 
description given of him by Churchill in the Rosciad : 

" Statesman all over — in plots famous grown, 
He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone." 

This unlucky sentence is said to have crippled him in the 
midst of his tragic career, and ultimately to have driven him 
from the stage. He carried into the bookselling craft some- 
what of the grandiose manner of the stage, and was prone to 
be mouthy and magniloquent. 

Churchill had intimated, that while on the stage he was more 
noted for his pretty wife than his good acting: 

" With him came mighty Davies; on my life, 
That fellow has a very pretty wife." 

"Pretty Mrs. Davies," continued to be the lode-star of his 
fortunes. Her tea-table became almost as much a literary 
lounge as her husband's shop. She found favor in the eyes of 
the TTrsa Major of literature by her winning ways, as she poured 
out for him cups without stint of his favorite beverage. In- 
deed it is suggested that she was one leading cause of his habit- 
ual resort to this literary haunt. Others were drawn thither 
for the sake of Johnson's conversation, and thus it became a 
resort of many of the notorieties of the day. Here might 
occasionally be seen Bennet Langton, George Steevens, Dr. 
Percy, celebrated for his ancient ballads, and sometimes War- 
burton in prelatic state. Garrick resorted to it for a time, but 
soon grew shy and suspicious, declaring that most of the 
authors who frequented Mr. Davies's shop went merely to 
abuse him. 

Foote, the Aristophanes of the day, wa,s a frequent visitor ; 
his broad face beaming with fun and waggery, and his satirical 
aye ever on the lookout for characters and incidents for his 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 93 

farces. He was struck with the odd habits and appearance of 
Johnson and Goldsmith, now so often brought together in 
Davies's shop. He was about to put on the stage a farce called 
The Orators, intended as a hit at the Eobin Hood debating 
club, and resolved to show up the two doctors in it for the 
entertainment of the town. 

"What is the common price of an oak stick, sir?" said 
Johnson to Davies. ' ' Sixpence, " was the reply. ' ' Why, then, 
sir, give me leave to send your servant to purchase a shilling . 
one. I'll have a double quantity ; for I am told Foote means 
to take me off, as he calls it, and I am determined the fellow 
shall not do it with impunity." 

Foote had no disposition to undergo the criticism of the cud- 
gel wielded by such potent hands, so the farce of The Orators 
appeared without the caricatures of the lexicographer and the 
essayist. 



CHAPTEE XIII. 



ORIENTAL PROJECTS— LITERARY JOBS— THE CHEROKEE CHIEFS- 
MERRY ISLINGTON AND THE WHITE CONDUIT HOUSE— LETTERS 
ON THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND— JAMES BOSWELL— DINNER OF 
DAVIES —ANECDOTES OF JOHNSON AND GOLDSMITH. 

Notwithstanding his growing success, Goldsmith continued 
to consider literature a mere makeshift, and his vagrant im- 
agination teemed with schemes and plans of a grand but in- 
definite nature. One was for visiting the East and exploring 
the interior o»f Asia. He had, as has been before observed, a 
vague notion that valuable discoveries were to be made there, 
and many useful inventions in the arts brought back to the 
stock of European knowledge. " Thus, in Siberian Tartary," 
observes he in one of his writings, "the natives extract a 
strong spirit from milk, which is a secret probably unknown 
to the chemists of Europe. In the most savage parts of In- 
dia they are possessed of the secret of dying vegetable sub- 
stances scarlet, and that of refining lead into a metal which, 
for hardness and color, is little inferior to silver." 

Goldsmith adds a description of the kind of person suited 
to such an enterprise, in which he evidently had himself in 
view, 



Q4 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

"He should be a man of philosophical turn, one apt to 
deduce consequences of general utility from particular occur- 
rences ; neither swoln with pride, nor hardened by prejudice ; 
neither wedded to one particular system, nor instructed only 
in one particular science ; neither wholly a botanist, nor quite 
an antiquarian; his mind should be tinctured with miscel- 
laneous knowledge, and his manners humanized by an inter- 
course with men. He should be in some measure an en- 
thusiast to the design; fond of travelling, from a rapid 
imagination and an innate love of change; furnished with 
a body capable of sustaining every fatigue, and a heart 
not easily terrified at danger." 

In 1761, when Lord Bute became prime minister on the 
accession of George the Third, Goldsmith drew up a me- 
morial on the subject, suggesting the advantages to be derived 
from a mission to those countries solely for useful and 
scientific purposes; and, the better to insure success, he 
preceded his application to the government by an ingenious 
essay to the same effect in the Public Ledger. 

His memorial and his essay were fruitless, his project most 
probably being deemed the dream of a visionary. Still it 
continued to haunt his mind, and he would often talk of 
making an expedition to Aleppo some time or other, when 
his means were greater, to inquire into the arts peculiar 
to the East, and to bring home such as might be valuable. 
Johnson, who knew how little poor Goldsmith was fitted by 
scientific lore' for this favorite scheme of his fancy, scoffed at 
the project when it was mentioned to him. "Of ail men," 
said he, " Goldsmith is the most unfit to go out upon such an 
inquiry, for he is utterly ignorant of such arts as we already 
possess, and, consequently, could not know what would be 
accessions to our present stock of mechanical knowledge. Sir, 
he would bring home a grinding barrow, which you see in 
every street in London, and think that he had furnished a 
wonderful improvement." 

His connection with Newbery the bookseller now led him 
into a variety of temporary jobs, such as a pamphlet on the 
Cock-lane Ghost, a Life of Beau Nash, the famous Master of 
Ceremonies at Bath, etc. ; one of the best things for his fame, 
however, was the remodelling and republication of his Chinese 
Letters under the title of " The Citizen of the World," a work 
which has long since taken its merited stand among the 
glassies of the English language. I" Few works," it has been 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. o^ 

observed by one of his biographers, "exhibit a nicer percep- 
tion, or more delicate delineation of life and manners. Wit, 
humor, and sentiment pervade every page ; the vices and fol- 
lies of the day are touched with the most playful and diverting 
satire ; and English characteristics, in endless variety, are hit 
off with the pencil of a master." J 

In seeking materials for his varied views of life, he often 
mingled in strange scenes and got involved in whimsical situa- 
tions. In the summer of 1762 he was one of the thousands 
who went to see the Cherokee chiefs, whom he mentions in 
one of his writings. The Indians made their appearance in 
grand costume, hideously painted and besmeared. In the 
course of the visit Goldsmith made one of the chiefs a present, 
who, in the ecstasy of his gratitude, gave him an embrace 
that left his face well bedaubed with oil and red ochre. 

Toward the close of 1762 he removed to "merry Islington," 
then a country village, though now swallowed up in omni- 
vorous London. He went there for the benefit of country air, 
his health being injured by literary application and confine- 
ment, and to be near his chief employer, Mr. Newbery, who 
resided in the Canonbury House. In this neighborhood he 
used to take his solitary rambles, sometimes extending his 
walks to the gardens of the "White Conduit House," so 
famous among the essayists of the last century. While stroll 
ing one day in these gardens, he met three females of the 
family of a respectable tradesman to whom he was under 
some obligation, With his prompt disposition to oblige, he 
conducted them about the garden, treated them to tea, and 
ran up a bill in the most open-handed manner imaginable ; it 
was only when he came to pay that he found himself in one of \ 
his old dilemmas — he had not the wherewithal in his pocket. 
'K scene of perplexity now took place between him and the 
-waiter, in the midst of which came up some of his acquaint- 
ances, in whose eyes he wished to stand particularly well. 
This completed his mortification. There was no concealing 
the awkwardness of his position. The sneers of the waiter 
revealed it. His acquaintances amused themselves for some 
time at his expense, professing their inanity to relieve him. 
When, however, they had enjoyed their banter, the waiter^ 
was paid, and poor Goldsmith enabled to convoy off the ladies 
with flying colors. — — 

Among the various productions thrown off by him for the 
booksellers during this growing period of his reputation, was £i 



1 

96 OLIVER GO LB SMITH. 

small work in two volumes, entitled "The History of England, 
in a series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son." It was 
digested from Hume, Eapin, Carte, and Kennet. These 
authors he would read in the morning; make a few notes; 
ramble with a friend into the country about the skirts of 
"merry Islington;" return to a temperate dinner and cheerful 
evening ; and, before going to bed, write off what had arranged 
itself in his head from the studies of the morning. In this 
way he took a more general view of the subject, and wrote in 
a more free and fluent style than if he had been mousing all 
the time among authorities. The work, like many others 

• written by him in the earlier part of his literary career, was 
anonymous. Some attributed it to Lord Chesterfield, others 
to Lord Orrery, and others to Lord Lyttleton. The latter 
seemed pleased to be the putative father, and never disowned 
the bantling thus laid at his door ; and well might he have 
been proud to be considered capable of producing what has 
been well pronounced "the most finished and elegant sum- 
mary of English history in the same compass that has been or 
is likely to be written." 

/ The reputation of Goldsmith, it will be perceived, grew 
slowly; he was known and estimated by a few; but he had 
not those brilliant though fallacious qualities which flash upon 
the public, and excite loud but transient applause. His works 
were more read than cited ; and the charm of style, for which 
he was especially noted, was more apt to be felt than talked 
about. He used often to repine, in a half -humorous, half- 
querulous manner, at his tardiness in gaining the laurels 
which he felt to be his due. "The public," he would exclaim, 

."will never do me justice; whenever I write anything, they 
.make a point to know nothing about it." 

About the beginning of 1783 he became acquainted with Bos- 
well, whose literary gossipings were destined to have a delete- 
rious effect upon his reputation. BosweM was at that time a 
'young man, light, buoyant, pushing, and presumptuous. He 
had a morbid passion for mingling in the society of men noted 
for wit and learning, and had just arrived from Scotland, bent 
upon making his way into the literary circles of the metropo- 
lis. An intimacy with Dr. Johnson, the grea,t literary lumi- 
nary of the day, was the crowning object of his aspiring and 
somewhat ludicrous ambition. He expected to meet him at a 
dinner to which he was invited at Davies the bookseller's, but 
was disappointed. Goldsmith was present, but he was not ag 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 97 

yet sufiiciontly renowned to excite the reverence of Boswell. 
"At this time," says he in his notes, "I think he had published 
nothing with his name, though it was pretty generally under- 
stood that one Dr. Goldsmith was the author of ' An Inquiry 
into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe,' and of 
' The Citizen of the World,' a series of letters supposed to be 
written from London by a Chinese. " 

A conversation took place at table between Goldsmith and 
Mr. Robert Dodsley, compiler of the well-known collection of 
modern poetry, as to the merits of the current poetry of the 
day. Goldsmith declared there was none of superior merit. 
Dodsley cited his own collection in proof of the contrary. "It 
is true," said he, " we can boast of no palaces nowadays, like 
Dryden's Ode to St. Cecilia's Day, but we have villages com- 
posed of very pretty houses. " Goldsmith, however, maintained 
that there was nothing above mediocrity, an opinion in which 
Johnson, to whom it was repeated, concurred, and with reason, 
for the era was one of the dead levels of British poetry. 

Boswell has made no note of this conversation ; he was a 
unitarian in his literary devotion, and disposed to worship none 
but Johnson. Little Davies endeavored to console him for his 
disappointment, and to stay the stomach of his curiosity, by 
giving him imitations of the great lexicographer; mouthing his 
words, rolling his head, and assuming as ponderous a manner 
as his petty person would permit. Boswell was shortly after- 
ward made happy by an introduction to Johnson, of whom he 
became the obsequious satellite. From him he likewise im- 
bibed a more favorable opinion of Goldsmith's merits, though 
he was fain to consider them derived in a great measure from 
his Magnus Apollo. "He had sagacity enough," says he, "to 
cultivate assiduously the acquaintance of Johnson, and his 
faculties were gradually enlarged by the contemplation of such 
a model. To me and many others it appeared that he studi- 
ously copied the manner of Johnson, though, indeed, upon a 
smaller scale." So on another occasion he calls him "one of 
the brightest ornaments of the Johnsonian school." "His re- 
spectful attachment to Johnson, " adds he, "was then at its 
height; for his own literary reputation had not yet distin- 
guished him so much as to excite a vain desire of competition 
with his great master." 

What beautiful instances does the garrulous Boswell give of 
the goodness of heart of Johnson, and the passing homage to it 
by Goldsmith. They were speaking of a Mr. Levett, long an 



98 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

inmate of Johnson's house and a dependent on his bounty; but 
who, Boswell thought, must be an irksome charge upon him. 
"He is poor and honest," said Goldsmith, " which is recom- 
mendation enough to Johnson. 7 ' 

Boswell mentioned another person of a very bad character, 
and wondered at Johnson's kindness to him. ' ' He is now be- 
come miserable," said Goldsmith, "and that insures the protec- 
tion of Johnson. " Encomiums like these speak almost as much 
for the heart of him who praises as of him who is praised. 

Subsequently, when Boswell had become more intense in his 
literary idolatry, he affected to undervalue Goldsmith, and a 
lurking hostility to him is discernible throughout his writings, 
which some have attributed to a silly spirit of jealousy of the 
superior esteem evinced for the poet by Dr. Johnson. We 
have a gleam of this in his account of the first evening he spent 
in company with those two eminent authors at their famous 
resort, the Mitre Tavern, in Fleet Street. This took place on 
the 1st of July, 1763. The trio supped together, and passed 
some time in literary conversation. On quitting the tavern, 
Johnson, who had now been sociably acquainted with Gold- 
smith for two years, and knew his merits, took him with him 
to drink tea with his blind pensioner, Miss Williams, a high 
privilege among his intimates and admirers. To Boswell, a re- 
cent acquaintance whose intrusive sycophancy had not yet 
made its way into his confidential intimacy, he gave no invita- 
tion. Boswell felt it with all the jealousy of a little mind. 
" Dr. Goldsmith," says he, in his memoirs, " being a privileged 
man, went with him, strutting away, and calling to me with 
an air of superiority, like that of an esoteric over an exoteric 
disciple of a sage of antiquity, ' I go to Miss Williams.' I con- 
fess I then envied him this mighty privilege, of which he 
seemed to be so proud ; but it was not long before I obtained 
the same mark of distinction." 

Obtained ! but how ? not like Goldsmith, by the force of un- 
pretending but congenial merit, but by a course of the most 
pushing, contriving, and spaniel-like subserviency. Eeally, 
the ambition of the man to illustrate his mental insignificance, 
by continually placing himself in juxtaposition with the great 
lexicographer, has something in it perfectly ludicrous. Never, 
since the days of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, has there 
been presented to the world a more whimsically contrasted 
pair of associates than Johnson and Boswell. 

"Who is this Scotch cur at Johnson's heels?" asked some 



OLIVER GOZDSMITR 99 

one when Boswell had worked his way into incessant com- 
panionship. "He is not a cur," replied Goldsmith, "you are 
too severe ; he is only a bur. Tom Davies flung him at John- 
son in sport, and he has the faculty of sticking." 



CHAPTER XIV. 



HOGARTH A VISITOR AT ISLINGTON— HIS CHARACTER— STREET 
STUDIES— SYMPATHIES BETWEEN AUTHORS AND PAINTERS — SIR 
JOSHUA REYNOLDS— HIS CHARACTER— HIS DINNERS— THE LITER- 
ARY CLUB— ITS MEMBERS— JOHNSON'S REVELS WITH LANKEY 
'AND BEAU— GOLDSMITH AT THE CLUB. 

Among the intimates who used to visit the poet occasionally 
in his retreat at Islington, was Hogarth the painter. Gold- 
smith had spoken well of him in his essays in the Public 
Ledger, and this formed the first link in their friendship. He 
was at this time upward of sixty years of age, and is described 
as a stout, active, bustling little man, in a sky-blue coat, satiri- 
cal and dogmatic, yet full of real benevolence and the love of 
human nature. He was the moralist and philosopher of the 
pencil ; like Goldsmith he had sounded the depth of vice and 
misery, without being polluted by them ; and though his pic- 
turings had not the pervading amenity of those of the essayist, 
and dwelt more on the crimes and vices than the follies and 
humors of mankind, yet they were all calculated, in like man- 
ner, to fill the mind with instruction and precept, and to make 
the heart better. 

Hogarth does not appear to have had much of the rural feel- 
ing with which Goldsmith was so amply endowed, and may 
not have accompanied him in his strolls about hedges and 
green lanes ; but he was a fit companion with whom to ex- 
plore the mazes of London, in which he was continually on 
the look-out for character and incident. One of Hogarth's 
admirers speaks of having come upon him in Castle Street, 
engaged in one of his street studies, watching two boys who 
were quarrelling ; patting one on the back who flinched, and 
endeavoring to spirit him up to a fresh encounter. ' ' At him 
again ! D — him, if I would take it of him ! at him again !" 

A frail memorial of this intimacy between the painter and 
the poet exists in a portrait in oil, called ' ' Goldsmith's Host- 



100 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

ess. " It is supposed to have been painted by Hogarth in the 
course of his visits to Islington, and given by him to the poet 
as a means of paying his landlady. There are no friendships 
among men of talents more likely to be sincere than those be- 
tween painters and poets. Possessed of the same qualities of 
mind, governed by the same principles of taste and natural 
laws of grace and beauty, but applying them to different yet 
mutually illustrative arts, they are constantlyjin sympathy and 
never in collision with each other. 

A still more congenial intimacy of the kind was that con- 
tracted by Goldsmith with Mr. afterward Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds. The latter was now about forty years of age, a few 
years older than the poet, whom he charmed by the blandness 
and benignity of his manners, and the nobleness and generos- 
ity of his disposition, as much as he did by the graces of his 
pencil and the magic of his coloring. They were men of kin- 
dred genius, excelling in corresponding qualities of their sev- 
eral arts, for style in writing is what color is in painting; both 
are innate endowments, and equally magical in their effects. 
Certain graces and harmonies of both may be acquired by dili- 
gent study and imitation, but only in a limited degree ; where- 
as by their natural possessors they are exercised spontaneous- 
ly, almost unconsciously, and with ever-varying fascination. 
Reynolds soon understood and appreciated the merits of Gold- 
smith, and a sincere and lasting friendship ensued between 
them. 

At Reynolds's house Goldsmith mingled in a higher range of 
company than he had been accustomed to. The fame of this 
celebrated artist, and his amenity of manners, were gathering 
round him men of talents of all kinds, and the increasing afflu- 
ence of his circumstances enabled him to give full indulgence 
to his hospitable disposition. Poor Goldsmith had not yet, 
like Dr. Johnson, acquired reputation enough to atone for his 
external defects and his want of the air of good society. Miss 
Reynolds used to inveigh against his personal appearance, 
which gave her the idea, she said, of a low mechanic, a jour- 
neyman tailor. One evening at a large supper party, being 
called upon to give as a toast, the ugliest man she knew, she 
gave Dr. Goldsmith, upon which a lady who sat opposite, and 
whom she had never met before, shook hands with her across 
the table, and "hoped to become better acquainted." 

We have a graphic and amusing picture of Reynolds's hos- 
pitable but motley establishment, in an account given by a 




OLIVER goldsmith: 

Mr. Courtenay to Sir James Mackintosh ; though it speaks of a 
time after Reynolds had received the honor of knighthood. 
" There was something singular," said he, "in the style and 
economy of Sir Joshua's table that contributed to pleasantry 
and good-humor, a coarse, inelegant plenty, without any re- 
gard to order and arrangement. At five o'clock precisely, 
dinner was served, whether all the invited guests were arrived 
or not. Sir Joshua was never so fashionably ill-bred as to 
wait an hour perhaps for two or three persons of rank or title, 
and put the rest of the company out of humor by this invidi- 
ous distinction. His invitations, however, did not regulate 
the number of his guests. Many dropped in uninvited. A 
table prepared for seven or eight was often compelled to con- 
tain fifteen or sixteen. There was a consequent deficiency 
of knives, forks, plates, and glasses. The attendance was 
in the same style, and those who were knowing in the ways 
of the house took care on sitting down to call instantly for 
beer, bread, or wine, that they might secure a supply before 
the first course was over. He was once prevailed on to fur- 
nish the table with decanters and glasses at dinner, to save 
time and prevent confusion. These gradually were demolished 
in the course of service, and were never replaced. These tri- 
fling embarrassments, however, only served to enhance the hi- 
larity and singular pleasure of the entertainment. The wine, 
cookery and dishes were but little attended to ; nor was the 
fish or venison ever talked of or recommended. Amid this 
convivial animated bustle among his guests, our host sat per- 
fectly composed; always attentive to what was said, never 
minding what was ate or drank, but left every one at perfect 
liberty to scramble for himself. 

Out of this casual but frequent meeting of men of talent at 
this hospitable board rose that association of wits, authors, 
scholars, and statesmen, renowned as the Literary Club. ) Rey- 
nolds was the first to propose a regular association of the kind, 
and was eagerly seconded by Johnson, who proposed as a 
model a club which he had formed many years previously in 
Ivy Lane, but which was now extinct. Like that club the 
number of members was limited to nine. They were to meet 
and sup together once a week, on Monday night, at the Turk's 
Head on Gerard Street, Soho, and two members were to con- 
stitute a meeting. It took a regular form in the year 1764, but 
did not receive its literary appellation until several years af ter* 
ward, 



102 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

The original members were Reynolds, Johnson, Burke, Dr. 
Nugent, Bennet Langton, Topham Beauclerc, Chamier, Haw- 
kins, and Goldsmith ; and here a few words concerning some 
of the members may be acceptable. Burke was at that time 
about thirty-three years of age; he had mingled a little in 
politics, and been Under Secretary to Hamilton at Dublin, but 
was again a writer for the booksellers, and as yet but in the 
dawning of his fame. Dr. Nugent was his father-in-law, a 
Roman Catholic, and a physician of talent and instruction. 
Mr. afterward Sir John Hawkins was admitted into this asso- 
ciation from having been a member of Johnson's Ivy Lane 
club. Originally an attorney, he had retired from the prac- 
tice of the law, in consequence of a large fortune which fell 
to him in right of his wife, and was now a Middlesex magis- 
trate. He was, moreover, a dabbler in literature and music, 
and was actually engaged on a history of music, which he 
subseuqently published in five ponderous volumes. To him 
we are also indebted for a biography of Johnson, v/hich ap- 
peared after the death of that eminent man. Hawkins was 
as mean and parsimonious as he was pompous and conceited. 
He forbore to partake of the suppers at the club, and begged 
therefore to be excused from paying his share of the reckon- 
ing. " And was he excused? 1 ' asked Dr. Burney of Johnson. 
' ' Oh yes, for no man is angry at another for being inferior to 
himself. "We all scorned him and admitted his plea. Yet I 
really believe him to be an honest man at bottom, though to 
be sure he is penurious, and he is mean, and it must be owned 
he has a tendency to savageness." He did not remain above 
two or three years in the club ; being in a manner elbowed out 
in consequence of his rudeness to Burke. 

Mr. Anthony Chamier was secretary in the War Office, and 
a friend of Beauclerc, by whom he was proposed. We 
have left, our mention of Bennet Langton and Topham Beau- 
clerc until the last, because we have most to say about them. 
They were doubtless induced to join the club through their 
devotion to Johnson, and the intimacy of these two very 
young and aristocratic young men with the stern and some- 
what melancholy moralist is among the curiosities of literature. 

Bennet Langton was- of an ancient family, who held their 
ancestral estate of Langton in Lincolnshire, a great title to 
respect with Johnson. " Langton, sir," he would say, " has a 
grant of free warren from Henry the Second; and Cardinal 
Stephen Langton, in King John's reign, was of this family," 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 103 

Langton was of a mild, contemplative, enthusiastic nature. 
When but eighteen years of age he was so delighted with 
reading Johnson's "Kambler," that he came to London chiefly 
with a view to obtain an introduction to the author. Bos- 
well gives us an account of his first interview, which took 
place in the morning. It is not often that the personal ap- 
pearance of an author agrees with the preconceived ideas of 
his admirer. Langton, from perusing the writings of John- 
son, expected to find him a decent, well-dressed, in short a 
remarkably decorous philosopher. Instead of which, down 
from his bedchamber about noon, came, as newly risen, a 
large uncouth figure, with a little dark wig which scarcely 
covered his head, and his clothes hanging loose about him. 
But his conversation was so rich, so animated, and so forci- 
ble, and his religious and political notions so congenial with 
those in which Langton had been educated, that he conceived 
for him that veneration and attachment which he ever pre- 
served. 

Langton went to pursue his studies at Trinity College, Ox- 
ford, where Johnson saw much of him during a visit which 
he paid to the university. He found him in close intimacy 
with Topham Beauclerc, a youth two years older than him- 
self, very gay and dissipated, and wondered what sympathies 
could draw two young men together of such opposite char- 
acters. On becoming acquainted with Beauclerc he found 
that, rake though he was, he possessed an ardent love of lite- 
rature, an acute understanding, polished wit, innate gentility 
and high aristocratic breeding. He was, morever, the only 
son of Lord Sidney Beauclerc and grandson of the Duke of 
St. Albans, and' was thought in some particulars to have a 
resemblance to Charles the Second. These were high recom- 
mendations with Johnson, and when the youth testified a 
profound respect for him and an ardent admiration of his 
talents the conquest was complete, so that in a "short time," 
says Boswell, "the moral pious Johnson and the gay dissi- 
pated Beauclerc were companions." 

The intimacy begun in college chambers was continued 
when the youths came to town during the vacations. The un- 
couth, unwieldy moralist was flattered at finding himself an 
object of idolatry to two high-born, high-bred, aristocratic 
young men, and throwing gravity aside, was ready to join in 
their vagaries and play the part of a "young man upon 
town," Such at least is the picture given of him by Boswell 



104 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

on one occasion when Beauclerc and Langton having supped 
together at a tavern determined to give Johnson a rouse at 
three o'clock in the morning. They accordingly rapped vio- 
lently at the door of his chambers in the Temple. The in- 
dignant sage sallied forth in his shirt, poker in hand, and a 
little black wig on the top of his head, instead of helmet; 
prepared to wreak vengeance on the assailants of his castle ; 
but when his two young friends, Lankey and Beau, as he 
used to call them, presented themselves, summoning him forth 
to a morning ramble, his whole manner changed. "What, 
is it you, ye dogs?" cried he. "Faith, I'll have a frisk with 
you !" 

So said so done. They sallied forth together into Covent 
Garden; figured among the green grocers and fruit women, 
just come in from the country with their hampers ; repaired 
to a neighboring tavern, where Johnson brewed a bowl of 
bishop, a favorito beverage with him, grew merry over his 
cups, and anathematized sleep in two lines from Lord Lans- 
downe's drinking song: 

" Short, very short, be then thy reign, 
For I'm in haste to laugh and drink again." 

They then took boat again, rowed to Billingsgate, and John- 
son and Beauclerc determined, like "mad wags," to "keep 
it up" for the rest of the day. Langton, however, the most 
sober-minded of the three, pleaded an engagement to break- 
fast with some young ladies; whereupon the great moralist 
reproached him with "leaving his social friends to go and 
sit with a set of wretched unidecCd girls." 

4 This madcap freak of the great lexicographer made a sensa- 
tion, as may well be supposed, among his intimates. " I heard 
of your frolic t'other night, " said Garrick to him ; ' ' you'll be 
in the Chronicle.'''' He uttered worse forebodings to others. 
"I shall have my old friend to bail out of the round-house," 
said he. Johnson, however, valued himself upon having thus 
enacted a chapter in the "Rake's Progress," and crowed over 
Garrick on the occasion. u He durst not do such a thing!" 
chuckled he, "his wife would not let him!" 

When these two young men entered the club, Langton was 
about twenty-two, and Beauclerc about twenty-four years of 
age, and both were launched on London life. Langton, how- 
ever, was still the mild, enthusiastic scholar, steeped to the 
lips with fine conversational powers, and an invaluable talent 



OLIVER GOLDSMITB. 105 

for listening. He was upward of six feet high, and very spare. 
"Oh! that we could sketch him," exclaims Miss Hawkins, in 
her Memoirs, ' ' with his mild countenance, his elegant features, 
and his sweet smile, sitting with one leg twisted round the 
other, as if fearing to occupy more space than was equitable ; 
his person inclining forward, as if wanting strength to support 
his weight, and his arms crossed over his bosom, or his hands 
locked together on his knee." Beauclerc, on such occasions, 
sportively compared him to a stork in Raphael's Cartoons, 
standing on one leg. Beauclerc was more "a man upon town," 
a lounger in St. James's Street, an associate with George Selwyn, 
with Walpole, and other aristocratic wits ; a man of fashion at 
court ; a casual frequenter of the gaming-table ; yet with all 
this, he alternated in the easiest and happiest manner the 
scholar and the man of letters ; lounged into the club with the 
most perfect self-possession, bringing with him the careless 
grace and polished wit of high-bred society, but making hii*- 
self cordially at home among his learned fellow-members. 

The gay yet lettered rake maintained his sway over Johnson, 
who was fascinated by that air of the world, that ineffable 
tone of good society in which he felt himself deficient, espe- 
cially as the possessor of it always paid homage to his superior 
talent. "Beauclerc," he would say, using a quotation from 
Pope, "has a love of folly, but a scorn of fools; everything he 
does shows the one, and everything he says the other." Beau- 
clerc delighted in rallying the stern moralist of whom others 
stood in awe, and no one, according to Boswell, could take 
equal liberty with him with impunity. Johnson, it is well 
known, was often shabby and negligent in his dress, and not 
over-cleanly in his person. On receiving a pension from the 
crown, his friends vied with each other in respectful congratu- 
lations. Beauclerc simply scanned his person with a whim- 
sical glance, and hoped that, like Falstaff, " he'd in future 
purge and live cleanly like a gentleman." Johnson took the 
hint with unexpected good humor, and profited by it. 

Still Beauclerc's satirical vein, which darted shafts on every 
side, was not always tolerated by Johnson. "Sir," said he on 
one occasion, " you never open your mouth but with intention 
to give pain; and you have often given me pain, not from the 
power of what you have said, but from seeing your inten- 
tion." 

When it was first proposed to enroll Goldsmith among the 
members of this association, there seems to have been some 



106 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

demur; at least so says the pompous Hawkins. " As he wrote 
for the booksellers, we of the club looked on him as a mere 
literary drudge, equal to the task of compiling and translating, 
but little capable of original and still less of poetical composi- 
tion." 

Even for some time after his admission, he continued to be 
regarded in a dubious light by some of the members. Jonnson 
and Reynolds, of course, were well aware of his merits, nor 
was Burke a stranger to them; but to the others he was as yet 
a sealed book, and the outside was not prepossessing. His un- 
gainly person and awkward manners were against him with 
men accustomed to the graces of society, and he was not suffi- 
ciently at home to give play to his humor and to that bonho- 
mie which won the hearts of all who knew him. He felt 
strange and out of place in this new sphere ; he felt at times 
the cool satirical eye of the courtly Beauclerc scanning him, 
anc^ the more he attempted to appear at his ease, the more 
awkward he became. 



CHAPTER XV. 

JOHNSON A MONITOR TO GOLDSMITH— FINDS HIM IN DISTRESS 
WITH HIS LANDLADY — RELIEVED BY THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD 
— THE ORATORIO — POEM OF THE TRAVELLER — THE POET AND 
HIS DOG — SUCCESS OF THE POEM — ASTONISHMENT OF THE 
CLUB — OBSERVATIONS ON THE POEM. 

Johnson had now become one of Goldsmith's best friends 
and advisers. He knew all the weak points of his character, 
but he knew also his merits; and while he would rebuke him 
like a child, and rail at his errors and follies, he would suffer 
no one else to undervalue him. Goldsmith knew the sound- 
ness of his judgment and his practical benevolence, and often 
sought his counsel and aid amid the difficulties into which his 
heedlessness was continually plunging him. 

"I received one morning," says Johnson, "a message from 
poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, as it was 
not in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to 
him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to 
come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 107 

dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his 
rent, at which he was in a violent passion; I perceived that 
he had already changed my guinea, and had a bottle of 
Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into the 
bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of 
the means by which he might be extricated. He then told me 
he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. 
I looked into it and saw its merit; told the landlady I should 
soon return; and, having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty 
pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged 
his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for 
having used him so ill." 

The novel in question was the "Vicar of Wakefield;" the 
bookseller to whom Johnson sold it was Francis Newbery, 
nephew to John. Strange as it may seem, this captivating 
work, which has obtained and preserved an almost unrivalled 
popularity in various languages, was so little appreciated by 
the bookseller, that he kept it by him for nearly two years un- 
published ! 

Goldsmith had, as yet, produced nothing of moment in 
poetry. Among his literary jobs, it is true, was an oratorio 
entitled " The Captivity," founded on the bondage of the Israel- 
ites in Babylon. It was one of those unhappy offsprings of 
the muse ushered into existence amid the distortions of music. 
Most of the oratorio has passed into oblivion ; but the follow- 
ing song from it will never die : 

" The wretch condemned from life to part, 
Still, still on hope relies, 
And every pang that rends the heart 
Bids expectation rise. 

" Hope, like the glimmering taper's light. 
Illumes and cheers our way ; 
And still, as darker grows the night, 
Emits a brighter ray." 

Goldsmith distrusted his qualifications to succeed in poetry, 
and doubted the disposition of the public mind in regard to it. 
"I fear," said he, " I have come too late into the world; Pope 
and other poets have taken up the places in the temple of 
Fame ; and as lew at any period can possess poetical reputa- 
tion, a man of genius can now hardly acquire it. " Again, on 
another occasion, he observes: "Of all kinds of ambition, as 
things are now circumstanced, perhaps that which pursues 
poetical fame is the wildest. What from the increased refine- 



108 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

ment of the times, from the diversity of judgment produced 
by opposing systems of criticism, and from the more prevalent 
divisions of opinion influenced by party, the strongest and hap- 
piest efforts can expect to please but in a very narrow circle." 

At this very time he had by him his poem of "The Travel- 
ler." The plan of it, as has already been observed, was con- 
ceived many years before, during his travels in Switzerland, 
and a sketch of it sent from that country to his brother Henry 
in Ireland. The original outline is said to have embraced a 
wider scope ; but it was probably contracted through diffidence, 
in the process of finishing the parts. It had lain by him for 
several years in a crude state, and it was with extreme hesita- 
tion and after much revision that he at length submitted it to 
Dr. Johnson. The frank and warm approbation of the latter 
encouraged him to finish it for the press; and Dr. Johnson 
himself contributed a fewlines toward the conclusion. 

We hear much about "poetic inspiration, " and "the poet's 
eye in a fine frenzy rolling;" but Sir Joshua Eeynolds gives an 
anecdote of Goldsmith while engaged upon his poem, calculated 
to cure our notions about the ardor of composition. Calling 
upon the poet one day, he opened the door without ceremony, 
and found him in the double occupation of turning a couplet 
and teaching a pet dog to sit upon his haunches. At one time 
he would glance his eye at his desk, and at another shake his 
finger at the dog to make him retain his position. The last 
lines on the page were still wet ; they form a part of the descrip- 
tion of Italy : 

" By sports like these are all their cares beguiled, 
The sports of children satisfy the child." 

Goldsmith, with his usual good-humor, joined in the laugh 
caused by his whimsical employment, and acknowledged that 
his boyish sport with the dog suggested the stanza. 

The poem was published on the 19th of December, 1764, in a 
quarto form, by Newbery, and was the first of his works to 
which Goldsmith prefixed his name. As a testimony of cher- 
ished and well-merited affection, he dedicated it to his brother 
Henry There is an amusing affectation of indifference as to its 
fate expressed in the dedication. "What reception a poem 
may find," says he, "which has neither abuse, party, nor blank 
verse to support it, I cannot tell, nor am I solicitous to know." 
The truth is, no one was more emulous and anxious for poetic 
fame; and never was he more anxious than in the present 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 109 

instance, for it was his grand stake. Dr. Johnson aided the 
launching of the poem by a favorable notice in the Critical 
Review ; other periodical works came out in its favor. Some 
of the author's friends complained that it did not command in- 
stant and wide popularity ; that it was a poem to win, not to 
strike ; it went on rapidly increasing in favor ; in three months 
a second edition was issued ; shortly afterward a third ; then a 
fourth; and, before the year was out, the author was pro- 
nounced the best poet of his time. 

The appearance of "The Traveller" at once altered Gold- 
smith's intellectual standing in the estimation of society ; but 
its effect upon the club, if we may judge from the account 
given by Hawkins, was most ludicrous. They were lost in as- 
tonishment that a "newspaper essayist" and "bookseller's 
drudge" should have written such a poem. On the evening of 
its announcement to them Goldsmith had gone away early, 
after "rattling away as usual," and they knew not how to 
reconcile his heedless garrulity with the serene beauty, the 
easy grace, the sound good sense, and the occasional elevation 
of his poetry. They could scarcely believe that such magic 
numbers had flowed from a man to whom in general, says 
Johnson, "it was with difficulty they could give a hearing." 
"Well," exclaimed Chamier, " I do believe he wrote this poem 
himself, and let me tell you, that is believing a great deal." 

At the next meeting of the club Chamier sounded the author 
a little about his poem. "Mr. Goldsmith," said he, "what do 
you mean by the last word in the first line of your ' Traveller,' 
'remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow'f do you mean tardinesss 
of locomotion?" "Yes," replied Goldsmith inconsiderately, 
being probably flurried at the moment. " No, sir," interposed 
his protecting friend Johnson, "you did not mean tardiness of 
locomotion ; you meant that sluggishness of mind which comes 
upon a man in solitude." " Ah," exclaimed Goldsmith, " that 
was what I meant." Chamier immediately believed that John- 
son himself had written the line, and a rumor became pre- 
valent that he was the author of many of the finest passages. 
This was ultimately set at rest by Johnson himself, who marked 
with a pencil all the verses he had contributed, nine in number, 
inserted toward the conclusion, and by no means the best in 
the poem. He moreover, with generous warmth, pronounced 
it the finest poem that had appeared since the days of Pope. 

But one of the highest testimonials to the charm of the poem 
was given by Miss Reynolds, who had toasted poor Goldsmith 




HO OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

as the ugliest man of her acquaintance. Shortly after the ap 
pearance of "The Traveller," Dr. Johnson read it aloud from 
beginning to end in her presence. "Well," exclaimed she, 
when he had finished, "I never more shall think Dr. Gold- 
smith ugly !" 

On another occasion, when the merits of "The Traveller" 
were discussed at Eeynolds's board, Langton declared "There 
was not a bad line in the poem, not one of Dryden's careless 
verses." "I was glad," observed Reynolds, "to hear Charles 
Fox say it was one of the finest poems in the English language." 
' ' Why were you glad ?" rejoined Langton ; ' ' you surely had no 
doubt of this before." " No, " interposed Johnson, decisively; 
■ ' the merit of ' The Traveller' is so well established that Mr. 
Fox's praise cannot augment it, nor his censure diminish it." 

Boswell, who was absent from England at the time of the 
publication of "The Traveller," was astonished, on his return, 
to find Goldsmith, whom he had so much undervalued, sud- 
denly elevated almost to a par with his idol. He accounted for 
it by concluding that much both of the sentiments and expres- 
sion of the poem had been derived from conversations with 
Johnson. "He imitates you, sir," said this incarnation of 
toadyism. "Why, no, sir," replied Johnson, "Jack Hawks- 
worth is one of my imitators, but not Goldsmith. Goldy, sir, 
has great merit." "But, sir, he is much indebted to you for 
his getting so high in the public estimation." "Why, sir, he 
has, perhaps, got sooner to it by his intimacy with me." 

The poem went through several editions in the course of the 
first year, and received some few additions and corrections 
from the author's pen. It produced a golden harvest to Mr. 
Newbery, but all the remuneration on record, doled out by his 
niggard hand to the author, was twenty guineas ! 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. \\\ 



CHAPTER XVI. 

new lodgings— Johnson's compliment — a titled patron — the 
, poet at northumberland house— his independence of the 
great— the countess of northumberland — edwin and 
angelina— gosford and lord clare — publication of es- 
says—evils of a rising reputation — hangers-on — job 
writing— goody two shoes — a medical campaign — mrs. 
sidebotham. 

Goldsmith, now that he was rising in the world, and becom- 
ing a notoriety, felt himself called upon to improve his style 
of living. He accordingly emerged from Wine-Office Court, 
and took chambers in the Temple. It is true they were but 
of humble pretensions, situated on what was then the library 
staircase, and it would appear that he was a kind of inmate 
with Jeffs, the butler of the society. Still he was in the Tem- 
ple, that classic region rendered famous by the Spectator and 
other essayists, as the abode of gay wits and thoughtful men 
of letters; and which, with its retired courts and embow- 
ered gardens, in the very heart of a noisy metropolis, is, 
to the quiet-seeking student and author, an oasis freshening 
with verdure in the midst of a desert. Johnson, who*had be- 
come a kind of growling supervisor of the poet's affairs, paid 
him a visit soon after he had installed himself in his new quar- 
ters, and went prying about the apartment, in his near-sighted 
manner, examining everything minutely. Goldsmith was 
fidgeted by this curious scrutiny, and apprehending a dispo- 
sition to find fault, exclaimed, with the air of a man who had 
money in both pockets, ' 1 1 shall soon be in better chambers 
than these." The harmless bravado drew a reply from John- 
son, which touched the chord of proper pride. "Nay, sir," 
said he, "never mind that. Nil te quassiveris extra, " imply- 
ing that his reputation rendered him independent of outward 
show. Happy would it have been for poor Goldsmith, could 
he have kept this consolatory compliment perpetually in mind, 
and squared his expenses accordingly. 

Among the persons of rank who were struck with the merits 
of "The Traveller" was the Earl (afterward Duke) of North- 
umberland, He procured several other of Goldsmith's writ- 



112 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

ings, the perusal of which tended to elevate the author in his 
good opinion, and to gain for him his good will. The earl held 
the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and understanding 
Goldsmith was an Irishman, was disposed to extend to him 
the patronage which his high post afforded. He intimated 
the same to his relative, Dr. Percy, who, he found, was well 
acquainted with the poet, and expressed a wish that the latter 
should wait upon him. Here, then, was another opportunity 
for Goldsmith to better his fortune, had he been knowing and 
worldly enough to profit by it. Uuluckily the path to fortune 
lay through the aristocratical mazes of Northumberland House, 
and the poet blundered at the outset. The following is the -ac- 
count he used to give of his visit : "I dressed myself in. the 
best manner I could, and, after studying some compliments I 
thought necessary on such an occasion, proceeded to North- 
umberland House, and acquainted the servants that I had par- 
ticular business with the duke. They showed me into an ante- 
chamber, where, after waiting some time, a gentleman, very 
elegantly dressed, made his appearance; taking him for the 
duke, I delivered all the fine things I had composed in order 
to compliment him on the honor he had done me ; when, to 
my great astonishment, he told me I had mistaken him for 
his master, who would see me immediately. At that instant 
the duke came into the apartment, and I was so confounded 
on the occasion, that I wanted wcsrds barely sufficient to ex- 
press the sense I entertained of the duke's politeness, and 
went away exceedingly chagrined at the blunder I had com- 
mitted." 

Sir John Hawkins, in his life of Dr. Johnson, gives some 
further particulars of this visit, of which he was, in part, a 
witness. ' ' Having one day, " says he, ' ' a call to make on the 
late Duke, then Earl, of Northumberland, I found Goldsmith 
waiting for an audience in an outer room; I asked him what 
had brought him there; he told me, an invitation from his 
lordship. I made my business as short as I could, and, as a 
reason, mentioned that Dr. Goldsmith was waiting without. 
The earl asked me if I was acquainted with him. I told him 
that I was, adding what I thought most likely to recommend 
him. I retired, and stayed in the outer room to take him 
home. Upon his coming out, I asked him the result of his con- 
versation. 'His lordship,' said he, 'told me he had read my 
poem, meaning "The Traveller," and was much delighted 
with it ; that he was going to be lord-lieutenant of Ireland, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 113 

and that hearing I was a native of that country, he should 
be glad to do me any kindness.' ' And what did you answer,' 
said I, 'to this gracious offer?' ' Why,' said he, ' I could say 
nothing but that I had a brother there, a clergyman, that stood 
in need of help : as for myself, I have no great dependence on 
the promises of great men; I look to the booksellers for sup- 
port; they are my best friends, and I am not inclined to for- - 
sake them for others.'" "Thus," continues Sir John, "did 
this idiot in the affairs of the world trifle with his fortunes, 
and put back the hand that was held out to assist him." 

We cannot join with Sir John in his worldly sneer at the 
conduct of Goldsmith on this occasion. While we admire that 
honest independence of spirit which prevented him from ask- 
ing favors for himself, we love that warmth of affection which 
instantly sought to advance the fortunes of a brother: but the 
peculiar merits of Goldsmith seem to have been little under- 
stood by the Hawkinses, the Boswells, and the other biogra- 
phers of the day. 

After all, the introduction to Northumberland House did not\ 
prove so complete a failure as the humorous account given by 
Goldsmith, and the cynical account given by Sir John Haw- 
kins, might lead one to suppose. Dr. Percy, the heir male of 
the ancient Percies, brought the poet into the acquaintance of 
his kinswoman, the countess, who, before her marriage with 
the earl, was in her own right heiress of the House of North- 
umberland. "She was a lady," says Boswell, "not only of 
high dignity of spirit, such as became her noble blood, but of 
excellent understanding and lively talents." Under her aus- 
pices a poem of Goldsmith's had an aristocratical introduction 
to the world. This was the beautiful ballad of the " Hermit," 
originally published under the name of " Edwin and Angelina."" 
It was suggested by an old English ballad beginning "Gentle" 
Herdsman," shown him by Dr. Percy, who was at that time 
making his famous collection, entitled "Eeliques of Ancient"* 
English Poetry," which he submitted to the inspection of 
Goldsmith prior to publication. A few copies only of the 
"Hermit" were printed at first, with the following title-page: 
' ' Edwin and Angelina : a Ballad. By Mr. Goldsmith. Printed 
for the Amusement of the Countess of Northumberland." -^ 

All this, though it may not have been attended with any 
immediate pecuniary advantage, contributed to give Gold- 
smith's name and poetry the high stamp of fashion, so potent 
in England ; the circle at Northumberland House, however, 



114 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

was of too stately and aristocratical a nature to be much to 
his taste, and we do not find that he became familiar in it. 

He was much more at home at Gosfield, the noble seat of his 
countryman, Robert Nugent, afterward Baron Nugent and 
Viscount Clare, who appreciated his merits even more heartily 
than the Earl of Northumberland, and occasionally made him 
his guest both in town and country. Nugent is described as a 
jovial voluptuary, who left the Roman Catholic for the Pro- 
testant religion, with a view to bettering his fortunes ; he had 
an Irishman's inclination for rich widows, and an Irishman's 
luck with the sex; having been thrice married and gained a 
fortune with each wife. He was now nearly sixty, with a re- 
markably loud voice, broad Irish brogue, and ready, but some- 
what coarse wit. With all his occasional coarseness he was 
capable of high thought, and had produced poems which 
showed a truly poetic vein. He was long a member of the 
House of Commons, where his ready wit, his fearless decision, 
and good-humored audacity of expression, always gained him 
a hearing, though his tall person and awkward manner gained 
him the nickname of Squire Gawky, among the political scrib- 
blers of the day. With a patron of this jovial temperament, 
Goldsmith probably felt more at ease than with those of higher 
refinement. 

The celebrity which Goldsmith had acquired by his poem of 
"The Traveller," occasioned a resuscitation of many of his 
miscellaneous and anonymous tales and essays from the va- 
rious newspapers and other transient publications in which 
they lay dormant. These he published in 1765, in a collected 
form, under the title of " Essays by Mr. Goldsmith. "" The 
following essays," observes he in his preface, "have already 
appeared at different times, and in different publications. 
The pamphlets in which they were inserted being generally 
unsuccessful, these shared the common fate, without assisting 
the booksellers' aims, or extending the author's reputation. 
The public were too strenuously employed with their own fol- 
lies to be assiduous in estimating mine; so that many of my 
best attempts in this way have fallen victims to the transient 
topic of the times— the Ghost in Cock-lane, or the Siege of 
Ticonderoga. 

"But, though they have passed pretty silently into the 
world, I can by no means complain of their circulation. The 
magazines and papers of the day have indeed been liberal 
enough in this respect. Most of these essays have been regu- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 115 

larly reprinted twice or thrice a year, and conveyed to the 
public through the kennel of some engaging compilation. If 
there be a pride in multiplied editions, I have seen some of my 
labors sixteen times reprinted, and claimed by different parents 
as their own. I have seen them flourished at the beginning 
with praise, and signed at the end with the names of Philautos, 
Philalethes, Phileleutheros, and Philanthropos. It is time, 
however, at last to vindicate my claims; and as these enter- 
tainers of the public, as they call themselves, have partly lived 
upon me for some years, let me now try if I cannot live a little 
upon myself." 

It was but little, in fact, for all the pecuniary emolument he 
received from the volume was twenty guineas. It had a good 
circulation, however, was translated into French, and lja&. 
maintained its stand among the British classics. yS* 

Notwithstanding that the reputation of Goldsmith had 
greatly risen, his finances were often at a very low ebb, owing 
to his heedlessness as to expense, his liability to be imposed 
upon, and a spontaneous and irresistible propensity to give to 
every one who asked. The very rise in his reputation had in- 
creased these embarrassments. It had enlarged his circle of 
needy acquaintances, authors poorer in pocket than himself, 
who came in search of literary counsel ; which generally meant 
a guinea and a breakfast. And then his Irish hangers-on! 
"Our Doctor," said one of these sponges, "had a constant 
levee of his distressed countrymen, whose wants, as far as he 
was able, he always relieved; and he has often been known to 
leave himself without a guinea, in order to supply the neces- 
sities of others." 

This constant drainage of the purse therefore obliged him to 
undertake all jobs proposed by the booksellers, and to keep up 
a kind of running account with Mr. Newbery ; who was his 
banker on all occasions, sometimes for pounds, sometimes for 
shillings ; but who was a rigid accountant, and took care to be 
amply repaid in manuscript. Many effusions hastily penned 
in these moments of exigency, were published anonymously, 
and never claimed. Some of them have but recently been 
traced to his pen; while of many the true authorship will 
probably never be discovered. Among others it is suggested, 
and with great probability, that he wrote for Mr. Newbery the 
famous nursery story of " Goody Two Shoes," which appeared 
in 1765, at a moment when Goldsmith was scribbling for New- 
bery, and much pressed for funds. Several quaint little tales 



116 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

introduced in his Essays show that he had a turn for this 
species of mock history ; and the advertisement and title-page 
bear the stamp of his sly and playful humor. 

"We are desired to give notice, that there is in the press, and 
Speedily will be published, either by subscription or otherwise, 
as the public shall please to determine, the History of Little 
Goody Two Shoes, otherwise Mrs. Margery Two Shoes; with 
the means by which she acquired learning and wisdom, and, ! 
in consequence thereof, her estate; set forth at large for the 
benefit of those 

" Who, from a state of rags and care, 
And having shoes but half a pair, 
Their fortune and their fame should fix, 
And gallop in a coach and six." 

The world is probably not aware of the ingenuity, humor, 
good sense, and sly satire contained in many of the old Eng- 
lish nursery-tales. They have evidently been the sportive pro- 
ductions of able writers, who would not trust their names to 
productions that might be considered beneath their dignity. 
The ponderous works on which they relied for immortality 
have perhaps sunk into oblivion, and carried their names 
down with them; while their unacknowledged offspring, Jack 
the Giant Killer, Giles Gingerbread, and Tom Thumb, flourish 
in wide-spreading and never-ceasing popularity. 

As Goldsmith had now acquired popularity and an extensive 
acquaintance, he attempted, with the advice of his friends, to 
procure a more regular and ample support by resuming the 
medical profession. He accordingly launched himself upon the 
town in style; hired a man-servant; replenished his wardrobe 
at considerable expense, and appeared in a professional wig and 
cane, purple silk small-clothes, and a scarlet roquelaure but- 
toned to the chin: a fantastic garb, as we should think at the 
present day, but not unsuited to the fashion of the times. 

With his sturdy little person thus arrayed in the unusual 
magnificence of purple and fine linen, and his scarlet roquelaure 
flaunting from his shoulders, he used to strut into the apart- 
ments of his patients swaying his three-cornered hat in one 
hand and his medical sceptre, the cane, in the other, and as- 
suming an air of gravity and importance suited to the solem- 
nity of his wig; at least, such is the picture given of him by 
the waiting gentlewoman who let him into the chamber of one 
of. his lady patients. ... . .... 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 117 

He soon, however, grew tired and impatient of the duties 
a*d restraints of his profession ; his practice was chiefly among 
his friends, and the fees were not sufficient for his maintenance ; 
he was disgusted with attendance on sick-chambers and capri- 
cious patients, and looked ^ack with longing to his tavern 
haunts and broad convivial meetings, from which the dignity 
and duties of his medical calling restrained him. At length, 
on prescribing to a lady of his acquaintance who, to use a hack- 
neyed phrase, " rejoiced " in the aristocratical name of Side- 
botham, a warm dispute arose between him and the apothecary 
as to the quantity of medicine to be administered. The doctor 
stood up for the rights and dignities of his profession, and re- 
sented the interference of the compounder of drugs. His rights 
and dignities, however, were disregarded; his wig and cane 
and scarlet roquelaure were of no avail ; Mrs. Sidebotham sided 
with the hero of the pestle and mortar; and Goldsmith flung 
out of the house in a passion. "lam determined henceforth," 
said he to Topham Beauclerc, "to leave off prescribing for 
friends." "Do so, my dear doctor," was the reply; "when- 
ever you undertake to kill, let it be only your enemies." 

This was the end of Goldsmith's medical career. S 



CHAPTER XVII. 

PUBLICATION OF THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD — OPINIONS CONCERN- 
ING IT — OF DR. JOHNSON — OF ROGERS THE POET — OF GOETHE — 
ITS MERITS — EXQUISITE EXTRACT — ATTACK BY KENRICK — RE- 
PLY—BOOK-BUILDING—PROJECT OF A COMEDY. 

The success of the poem of "The Traveller," and the popu- 
larity which it had conferred on its author, now roused the at- 
tention of the bookseller in whose hands the novel of "The 
Vicar of Wakefield " had been slumbering for nearly two long 
years. The idea has generally •prevailed that it was Mr. John 
Newbery to whom the manuscript had been sold, and much 
surprise has been expressed that he should be insensible to its 
merit and suffer it to remain unpublished, while putting forth 
various inferior writings by the same author. This, however, 
is a mistake ; it was his nephew, Francis Newbery, who had 
become the fortunate purchaser. Still the delay is equally un* 



llg OLIVER GOLDSMim. 



accountable. Some have imagined that the uncle ana nephew 
had business arrangements together, in which this work was 
included, and that the elder Newbery, dubious of its success, 
retarded the publication until the full harvest of jf The Trav- 
eller" should be reaped. Booksellers are prone to make egre- 
gious mistakes as to the merit of works in manuscript; and to 
undervalue, if not reject, those of classic and enduring excel- 
lence, when destitute of that false brilliancy commonly called 
" effect." In the present instance, an intellect vastly superior 
to that of either of the booksellers was equally at fault. Dr. 
Johnson, speaking of the work to Boswell, some time subse- 
quent to its publication, observed, "I myself did not think it 
would have had much success. It was written and sold to a 
bookseller before ' The Traveller, ' but published after, so little 
expectation had the bookseller from it. Had it been sold after 
'The Traveller,' he might have had twice as much money; 
though sixty guineas was no mean price." 

Sixty guineas for the Vicar of Wakefield ! and this could be 
pronounced no mean price by Dr. Johnson, at that time the 
arbiter of British talent, and who had had an opportunity of 
witnessing the effect of the work upon the public mind; for its 
success was immediate. It came out on the 27th of March, 
1766; before the end of May a second edition was called for; in 
three months more a third ; and so it went on, widening in a 
popularity that has never flagged. Eogers, the Nestor of 
British literature, whose refined purity of taste and exquisite 
mental organization, rendered him eminently calculated to 
appreciate a work of the kind, declared that of all the books, 
which, through the fitful changes of three generations he had 
seen rise and fall, the charm of the Vicar of Wakefield had 
alone continued as at first ; and could he revisit the world after 
an interval of many more generations, he should as surely look 
to find it undiminished. Nor has its celebrity been confined 
to Great Britain. Though so exclusively a picture of British 
scenes and manners, it has been translated into almost every 
language, and everywhere its charm has been the same. 
Goethe, the great genius of Germany, declared in his eighty- 
first year, that it was his delight at the age of twenty, that it 
had in a manner formed a part of his education, influencing his 
taste and feelings throughout life, and that he had recently 
read it again from beginning to end — with renewed delight, and 
with a grateful sense of the early benefit derived from it. 

It is needless to expatiate upon the qualities of a work which 



... 



OLIVEk GOLDSMITH. \\§ 

has thus passed from country to country, and language to lan- 
guage, until it is now known throughout the whole reading 
world, and is become a household book in every hand. The 
secret of its universal and enduring popularity is undoubtedly 
its truth to nature, but to nature of the most amiable kind ; to 
nature such as Goldsmith saw it. The author, as we have occa- 
sionally shown in the course of this memoir, took his scenes 
and characters in this as in his other writings, from originals 
in his own motley experience ; but he has given them as seen 
through the medium of his own indulgent eye, and has set them 
forth with the colorings of his own good head and heart. Yet 
how contradictory it seems that this, one of the most delightful 
pictures of home and homefelt happiness, should be drawn by 
a homeless man ; that the most amiable picture of domestic vir- 
tue and all the endearments of the married state should be 
drawn by a bachelor, who had been severed from domestic life 
almost from boyhood ; that one of the most tender, touching, 
and affecting appeals on behalf of female loveliness should 
have been made by a man whose deficiency in all the graces 
of person and manner seemed to mark him out for a cynical 
disparager of the sex. 

We cannot refrain from transcribing from the work a short 
passage illustrative of what we have said, and which within a 
wonderfully small compass comprises a world of beauty of 
imagery, tenderness of feeling, delicacy and refinement of 
thought, and matchless purity of style. The two stanzas 
which conclude it, in which are told a whole history of a 
woman's wrongs and sufferings, is, for pathos, simplicity, and 
euphony, a gem in the language. The scene depicted is where 
the poor Vicar is gathering around him the wrecks of his shat- 
tered family, and endeavoring to rally them back to happiness. 

' ' The next morning the sun arose with peculiar warmth for 
the season, so that we agreed to breakfast together on the 
honeysuckle bank ; where, while we sat, my youngest daugh- 
ter at my request joined her voice to the concert on the trees 
about us. It was in this place my poor Olivia first met her 
seducer, and every object served to recall her sadness. But 
that melancholy which is excited by objects of pleasure, or 
inspired by sounds of harmony, soothes the heart instead of 
corroding it. Her mother, too, upon this occasion, felt a 
pleasing distress, and wept, and loved her daughter as before. 
1 Do, my pretty Olivia,' cried she, ' let us have that melancholy 
air your father was so fond of; your sister Sophy has already 



120 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

obliged us. Do, child; it will please your old father.' She 
complied in a manner so exquisitely pathetic as moved me. 

" ' When lovely woman stoops to folly, 
And finds too late that men betray, 
What charm can soothe her melancholy, 
What art can wash her guilt away? 

'" The only art her guilt to cover, 

To hide her shame from every eye, 
To give repentance to her lover, 
And wring his bosom — is to die.' " 

Scarce had the Vicar of Wakefield made its appearance and 
?been received with acclamation, than its author was subjected 
to one of the usual penalties that attend success. He was at- 
tacked in the newspapers. In one of the chapters he had in- 
troduced his ballad of the Hermit, of which, as we have men- 
tioned, a few copies had been printed some considerable time 
previously for the use of the Countess of Northumberland. 
This brought forth the following article in a fashionable jour- 
nal of the day. 

" To the Printer of the St. James's Chronicle. 

"Sir: In the Reliques of Ancient Poetry, published about 
two years ago, is a very beautiful little ballad, called l A Friar 
of Orders Gray.' The ingenious editor, Mr. Percy, supposes 
that the stanzas sung by Ophelia in the play of Hamlet were 
parts of some ballad well known in Shakespeare's time, and 
from these stanzas, with the addition of one or two of his own 
to connect them, he had formed the above-mentioned ballad; 
the subject of which is, a lady comes to a convent to inquire 
for her love who had been driven there by her disdain. She 
is answered by a friar that he is dead : 

'"No, no, he is dead, gone to his death's bed. 
He never will come again.' 

• 

The lady weeps and laments her cruelty; the friar endeavors 
to comfort her with morality and religion, but all in vain ; she 
expresses the deepest grief and the most tender sentiments of 
love, till at last the friar discovers himself: 



it e 



And lo ! beneath this gown of ?ray 
Thy own true love appears.' 



"This catastrophe is very fine, and the whole, joined with 
the greatest tenderness, has the greatest simplicity; yet, 
though this ballad was so recently published in the Ancient 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 121 

Reliques, Dr. Goldsmith has been hardy enough to publish a 
poem called ' The Hermit,' where the circumstances and catas- 
trophe are exactly the same, only with this difference, that 
the natural simplicity and tenderness of the original are al- 
most entirely lost in the languid smoothness and tedious para- 
phrase of the copy, which is as short of the merits of Mr. 
Percy's ballad as the insipidity of negus is to the genuine 
flavor of champagne. 

"I am, sir, yours, etc., 

"Detector." 

This attack, supposed to be by Goldsmith's constant perse- 
cutor, the malignant Kenrick, drew from him the following 
note to the editor : 

"Sir: As there is nothing I dislike so much as newspaper 
controversy, particularly upon trifles, permit me to be as con- 
cise as possible in informing a correspondent of yours that I 
recommended Blainville's travels because I thought the book 
was a good one ; and I think so still. I said I was told by the 
bookseller that it was then first published ; but in that it seems 
I was misinformed, and my reading was not extensive enough 
to set me right. 

"Another correspondent of yours accuses me of having 
taken a ballad I published some time ago, from one by the in- 
genious Mr. Percy. I do not think there is any great resem- 
blance between the two pieces in question. If there be any, 
his ballad was taken from mine. I read it to Mr. Percy some 
years ago ; and he, as we both considered these things as trifles 
at best, told me, with his usual good-humor, the next time I 
saw him, that he had taken my plan to form the fragments of 
Shakespeare into a ballad of his own. He then read me his 
little Cento, if I may so call it, and I highly approved it. Such 
petty anecdotes as these are scarcely worth printing; and 
were it not for the busy disposition of some of your corre- 
spondents, the public should never have known that he owes 
me the hint of his ballad, or that I am obliged to his friend- 
ship and learning for communications of a much more impor- 
tant nature. 

" I am, sir, yours, etc., 

" Oliver Goldsmith.^ 7 

The unexpected circulation of the " Vicar of Wakefield " en- 



122 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

riched the publisher, but not the author. Goldsmith no doubt 
thought himself entitled to participate in the profits of the re- 
peated editions ; and a memorandum, still extant, shows that 
he drew upon Mr. Francis Newbery, in the month of June, for 
fifteen guineas, but that the bill was returned dishonored. He 
continued therefore his usual job-work for the booksellers, 
writing introductions, prefaces, and head and tail pieces for 
new works ; revising, touching up, and modifying travels and 
voyages; making compilations of prose and poetry, and 
" building books," as he sportively termed it. These tasks re- 
quired little labor or talent, but that taste and touch whicn are 
the magic of gifted minds. His terms began to be propor- 
tioned to his celebrity. If his price was at any time objected 
to, " Why, sir," he would say, " it may seem large; but then 
a man may be many years working in obscurity before his 
taste and reputation are fixed or estimated ; and then he is, as 
in other professions, only paid for his previous labors." 

He was, however, prepared to try his fortune in a different 
walk of literature from any he had yet attempted. We have 
repeatedly adverted to his fondness for the drama; he was a 
frequent attendant at the theatres; though, as we have shown, 
he considered them under gross mismanagement. He thought, 
too, that a vicious taste prevailed among those who wrote for 
the stage. " A new species of dramatic composition," says he, 
in one of his essays, " has been introduced under the name of 
sentimental comedy, in which the virtues of private life are 
exhibited, rather than the vices exposed ; and the distresses 
rather than the faults of mankind make our interest in the 
piece. In these plays aimost all the characters are good, and 
exceedingly generous; they are lavish enough of their tin 
money on the stage; and though they want humor, have 
abundance of sentiment and feeling. If they happen to have 
faults or foibles, the spectator is taught not only to pardon, 
but to applaud them in consideration of the goodness of their 
hearts ; so that folly, instead of being ridiculed, is commended, 
and the comedy aims at touching our passions, without the 
power of being truly pathetic. In this manner we are likely 
to lose one great source of entertainment on the stage; for 
while the comic poet is invading the province of the tragic 
muse, he leaves her lively sister quite neglected. Of this, 
however, he is no ways solicitous, as he measures his fame by 
his profits. ... 

"Humor at present seems to be departing from the stage; 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 123 

and it will soon happen that our comic players will have notlp 
ing left for it but a fine coat and a song. It depends upon the 
audience whether they will actually drive those poor merry 
creatures from the stage, or sit at a play as gloomy as at the 
tabernacle. It is not easy to recover an art when once lost ; 
and it will be a just punishment, that when, by our being too 
fastidious, we have banished humor from the stage, we should 
ourselves be deprived of the art of laughing." 

Symptoms of reform in the drama had recently taken place. 
The comedy of the Clandestine Marriage, the joint production 
of Colman and Garrick, and suggested by Hogarth's inimitable' 
pictures of "Marriage a la mode," had taken the town by 
storm, crowded the theatres with fashionable audiences, and 
formed one of the leading literary topics of the year. Gold- 
smith's emulation was roused by its success. The comedy was 
in what he considered the legitimate line, totally different from 
the sentimental school; it presented pictures of real life, de- 
lineations of character and touches of humor, in which he felt 
himself calculated to excel. The consequence was that in the 
course of this year (1766), he commenced a comedy of the 
same class, to be entitled the Good-Natured Man, at which he 
diligently wrought whenever the hurried occupation of " book 
building" allowed him leisure. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

SOCIAL POSITION OF GOLDSMITH — HIS COLLOQUIAL CONTESTS 
WITH JOHNSON— ANECDOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 

The social position of Goldsmith had undergone a material 
change since the publication of " The Traveller." Before that 
event he was but partially known as the author of some clever 
anonymous writings, and had been a tolerated member of the 
club and the Johnson circle, without much being expected 
from him. Now he had suddenly risen to literary fame, and 
become one of the lions of the day. The highest regions of 
intellectual society were now open to him ; but he was not 
prepared to move in them with confidence and success. Bally- 
mahon had not been a good school of manners at the outset of 
life; nor had his experience as a "poor student" at colleges 
and medical. schools contributed to give him the polish of 



124 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

society. He had brought from Ireland, as he said, nothing 
but his "brogue and his blunders," and they had never left 
him. He had travelled, it is true; but the Continental tour 
which in those days gave the finishing grace to the education 
of a patrician youth, had, with poor Goldsmith, been little 
better than a course of literary vagabondizing. It had en- 
riched his mind, deepened and widened the benevolence of his 
heart, and filled his memory with enchanting pictures, but it 
had contributed little to disciplining him for the polite inter- 
course of the world. His life in London had hitherto been a 
struggle with sordid cares and sad humiliations. "You 
scarcely can conceive," wrote he some time previously to his 
brother, "how much eight years of disappointment, anguish, 
and study have worn me down." Several more years had 
since been added to the term during which he had trod the 
lowly walks of life. He had been a tutor, an apothecary's 
drudge, a petty physician of the suburbs, a bookseller's hack, 
drudging for daily bread. Each separate walk had been beset 
by its peculiar thorns and humiliations. It is wonderful how 
his heart retained its gentleness and kindness through all these 
trials; how his mind rose above the " meannesses of poverty," - 
to which, as he says, he was compelled to submit ; but it would 
be still more wonderful, had his manners acquired a tone 
corresponding to the innate grace and refinement of his in- 
tellect. He was near forty years of age when he published 
" The Traveller," and was lifted by it into celebrity. As is 
beautifully said of him by one of his biographers, "he has 
fought his way to consideration and esteem; but he bears 
upon him the scars of his twelve years' conflict ; of the mean 
sorrows through which he has passed; and of the cheap in- 
dulgences he has sought relief and help from. There is noth- 
ing plastic in his nature now. His manners and habits are 
completely formed ; and in them any further success can make 
little favorable change, whatever it may effect for his mind or 
genius." * 

We are not to be surprised, therefore, at finding him make 
an awkward figure in the elegant drawing-rooms which were 
now open to him, and disappointing those who had formed an 
idea of him from the fascinating ease and gracefulness of his 
poetry. 

Even the literary club, and the circle of which it formed a 

* Forster's Goldsmith. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 125 

part, after their surprise at the intellectual nights of which he 
showed himself capable, fell into a conventional mode of judg- 
ing and talking of him, and of placing him in absurd and 
whimsical points of view. His very celebrity operated here to 
his disadvantage. It brought him into continual comparison 
with Johnson, who was the oracle of that circle and had given 
it a tone. Conversation was the great staple there, and of this 
Johnson was a master. He had been a reader and thinker 
from childhood ; his melancholy temperament, which unfitted 
him for the pleasures of youth, had made him so. For many 
years past the vast variety of works he had been obliged to 
consult in preparing his Dictionary, had stored an uncom- 
monly retentive memory with facts on all kinds of subjects ; 
making it a perfect colloquial armory. "He had all his life," 
says Boswell, " habituated himself to consider conversation as 
a trial of intellectual vigor and skill. He had disciplined him- 
self as a talker as well as a wrfter, making it a rule to impart 
whatever he knew in the most forcible language he could put 
it in, so that by constant practice and never suffering any 
careless expression to escape him, he had attained an extraor- 
dinary accuracy and command of language." 

His common conversation in all companies, according to Sir 
Joshua Eeynolds, was such as to secure him universal atten- 
tion, something above the usual colloquial style being always 
expected from him. 

" I do not care," said Orme, the historian of Hindostan, " on 
what subject Johnson talks ; but I love better to hear him talk 
than anybody. He either gives you new thoughts or a new 
coloring." 

A stronger and more graphic eulogium is given by Dr. 
Percy. "The conversation of Johnson," says he, "is strong 
and clear, and may be compared to an antique statue, where 
every vein and muscle is distinct and clear." 

Such was the colloquial giant with which Goldsmith's cele- 
brity and his habits of intimacy brought him into continual 
comparison; can we wonder that he should appear to dis- 
advantage ? Conversation grave, discursive, and disputatious, 
such as Johnson excelled and delighted in, was to him a severe 
task, and he never was good at a task of any kind. He had 
not, like Johnson, a vast fund of acquired facts to draw upon ; 
nor a retentive memory to furnish them forth when wanted. 
He could not, like the great lexicographer, mould his ideas 
and balance his periods while talking. He had a flow of ideas, 



126 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

but it was apt to be hurried and confused, and as he said of 
himself, he had contracted a hesitating and disagreeable man- 
ner of speaking. He used to say that he always argued best 
when he argued alone ; that is to say, he could master a sub- 
ject in his study, with his pen in his hand ; but, when he came 
into company he grew confused, and was unable to talk about 
it. Johnson made a remark concerning him to somewhat of 
the same purport. "No man," said he, "is more foolish than 
Goldsmith when he has not a pen in his hand, or more wise 
when he has." Yet with all this conscious deficiency he was 
continually getting involved in colloquial contests with John- 
son and other prime talkers of the literary circle. He felt that 
he had become a notoriety ; that he had entered the lists and 
was expected to make fight ; so with that heedlessness which 
characterized him in everything else he dashed on at a ven- 
ture ; trusting to chance in this as in other things, and hoping 
occasionally to make a lucky hit. Johnson perceived his hap- 
hazard temerity, but gave him no credit for the real diffidence 
which lay at bottom. "The misfortune of Goldsmith in con- 
versation," said he, "is this, he goes on without knowing how 
he is to get off. His genius is great, but his knowledge is 
small. As they say of a generous man, it is a pity he is not 
rich, we may say of Goldsmith it is a pity he is not knowing. 
He would not keep his knowledge to himself." And, on 
another occasion, he observes: "Goldsmith, rather than not 
talk, will talk of what he knows himself to be ignorant, which 
can only end in exposing him. If in company with two foun- 
ders, he would fall a talking on the method of making cannon, 
though both of them would soon see that he did not know 
what metal a cannon is made of." And again: "Goldsmith 
should not be forever attempting to shine in conversation ; he 
has not temper for it, he is so much mortified when he fails. 
Sir, a game of jokes is composed partly of skill, partly of 
chance ; a man may be beat at times by one who has not the 
tenth part of his wit. Now Goldsmith, putting himself against 
another, is like a man laying a hundred to one, who cannot 
spare the hundred. It is not worth a man's while. A man 
should not lay a hundred to one unless he can easily spare it, 
though he has a hundred chances for him ; he can get but a 
guinea, r and he may lose a hundred. Goldsmith is in this 
state. When he contends, if he gets the better, it is a very 
little addition to a man of his literary reputation ; if he does 
not get the better, he is miserably vexed." 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



127 



Johnson was not aware how much he was himself to blame 
in producing this vexation. ' ' Goldsmith, " said Miss Keynolds, 
" always appeared to be overawed by Johnson, particularly 
when in company with people of any consequence; always as 
if impressed with fear of disgrace ; and indeed well he might. 
I have been witness to many mortifications he has suffered in 
Dr. Johnson's company." 

It may not have been disgrace that he feared, but rudeness. 
The great lexicographer, spoiled by the homage of society, was 
still more prone than himself to lose temper when the argu- 
ment went against him. He could not brook appearing to be 
worsted; but would attempt to bear down his adversary by 
the rolling thunder of his periods; and when that failed, 
would become downright insulting. Boswell called it ' ' having 
recourse to some sudden mode of robust sophistry;" but Gold- 
smith designated it much more happily. "There is no argu- 
ing with Johnson," said he, "for when his pistol misses fire, he 
knocks you down with the butt end of it." * 

In several of the intellectual collisions recorded by Boswell 
as triumphs of Dr. Johnson, it really appears to us that Gold- 
smith had the best both of the wit and the argument, and 
especially of the courtesy and good-nature. 

On one occasion he certainly gave Johnson a capital reproof 
as to his own colloquial peculiarities. Talking of fables, Gold- 
smith observed that the animals introduced in them seldom 
talked in character. "For instance," said he, "the fable of 
the little fishes, who saw birds fly over their heads, and, envy- 
ing them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds. The 
skill consists in making them talk like little fishes." Just then 
observing that Dr. Johnson was shaking his sides and laugh- 
ing, he immediately added, "Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so 
easy as you seem to think; for if you were to make little fishes 
talk, they would talk like whales." 

But though Goldsmith suffered frequent mortifications in so- 
ciety from the overbearing, and sometimes harsh, conduct of 
Johnson, he always did justice to his benevolence. When 
royal pensions were granted to Dr. Johnson and Dr. Sheb- 
beare, a punster remarked, that the king had pensioned a she- 



* The following is given by Boswell, as an instance of robust sophistry: " Once 
when I was pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped me thus ' My 
dear Boswell, let's have no more of this ; you'll make nothing of ft, I'd rather hear 
yp^i whistle a Scotch ftine,"' • '* 



128 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

bear and a he-bear; to which Goldsmith replied, "Johnson, to 
be sure, has a roughness in his manner, but no man alive has 
a more tender heart. He has nothing of the bear but the skin.]/ 
Goldsmith, in conversation, shone most when he least 
thought of shining ; when he gave up all effort to appear wise 
and learned, or to cope with the oracular sententiousness of 
Johnson, and gave way to his natural impulses. Even Bos- 
well could perceive his merits on these occasions. "For my 
part," said he, condescendingly, " I like very well to hear hon- 
est Goldsmith talk away carelessly ;" and many a much wiser 
man than Boswell delighted in those outpourings of a fertile 
fancy and a generous heart. In his happy moods, Goldsmith 
had an artless simplicity and buoyant good-humor, that led to 
a thousand amusing blunders and whimsical confessions, much 
to the entertainment of his intimates ; yet, in his most thought- 
less garrulity, there was occasionally the gleam of the gold 
and the flash of the diamond. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

SOCIAL RESORTS — THE SHILLING WHIST CLUB — A PRACTICAL JOKE 
— THE WEDNESDAY CLUB — THE " TUN OF MAN" — THE PIG 
BUTCHER— TOM KING— HUGH KELLY— GLOVER AND HIS CHAR- 
ACTERISTICS. 

Though Goldsmith's pride and ambition led him to mingle 
occasionally with high society, and to engage in the colloquial 
conflicts of the learned circle, in both of which he was ill at 
ease and conscious of being undervalued, yet he had some so- 
cial resorts in which he indemnified himself for their restraints 
by indulging his humor without control. One of them was a 
shilling whist club, which held its meetings at the Devil Tav- 
ern, near Temple Bar, a place rendered classic, we are told, by 
a club held there in old times, to which "rare Ben Jonson" 
had furnished the rules. The company was of a familiar, un- 
ceremonious kind, delighting in that very questionable wit 
which consists in playing off practical jokes upon each other. 
Of one of these Goldsmith was made the butt. Coming to the 
club one night in a hackney coach, he gave the coachman by 
mistake a guinea instead of a shilling, which he set down as a 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 129 

dead loss, for there was no likelihood, he said, that a fellow of 
this class would have the honesty to return the money. On 
the next club evening he was told a person at the street door 
wished to speak with him. He went forth, but soon returned 
with a radiant countenance. To his surprise and delight the 
coachman had actually brought back the guinea. While he 
launched forth in praise of this unlooked-for piece of honesty, 
he declared it ought not to go unrewarded. Collecting a small 
sum from the club, and no doubt increasing it largely from his 
own purse, he dismissed the Jehu with many encomiums on 
his good conduct. He was still chanting his praises, when one 
of the club requested a sight of the guinea thus honestly re- 
turned. To Goldsmith's confusion it proved to be a counter- 
feit. The universal burst of laughter which succeeded, and 
the jokes by which he was assailed on every side, showed him 
that the whole was a hoax, and the pretended coachman as 
much a counterfeit as the guinea. He was so disconcerted, it 
is said, that he soon beat a retreat for the evening. 

Another of those free and easy clubs met on Wednesday 
evenings at the Globe Tavern in Fleet Street. It was some- 
what in the style of the Three Jolly Pigeons; songs, jokes, 
dramatic imitations, burlesque parodies and broad sallies of 
humor, formed a contrast to the sententious morality, pedan- 
tic casuistry, and polished sarcasm of the learned circle. Here 
a huge "tun of man," by the name of Gordon, used to delight 
Goldsmith by singing the jovial song of Nottingham Ale, and 
looking like a butt of it. Here, too, a wealthy pig butcher, 
charmed, no doubt, by the mild philanthropy of "The Trav- 
eller, " aspired to be on the most social footing with the author, 
and here was Tom King, the comedian, recently risen to con- 
sequence by his performance of Lord Ogleby in the new com- 
edy of the Clandestine Marriage. 

A member of more note was one Hugh Kelly, a second-rate 
author, who, as he became a kind of competitor of Gold- 
smith's, deserves particular mention. He was an Irishman, 
about twenty-eight years of age, originally apprenticed to a 
staymaker in Dublin ; then writer to a London attorney ; then 
a Grub Street hack, scribbling for magazines and newspapers. 
Of late he had set up for theatrical censor and satirist, and, in 
a paper called Thespis, in emulation of Churchill's Eosciad, 
had harassed many of the poor actors without mercy, and 
often without wit ; but had lavished his incense on Garrick, 
who, in consequence, took him into favor. He was the author 



130 OLIVER, GOLDSMITH. 

of several works of superficial merit, but which had sufficient 
vogue to inflate his vanity. This, however, must have been 
mortified on his first introduction to Johnson ; after sitting a 
short time he got up to take leave, expressing a fear that a 
longer visit might be troublesome. "Not in the least, sir," 
said the surly moralist, ' ' I had forgotten you were in the 
room." Johnson used to speak of him as a man who had 
written more than he had read. 

A prime wag of this club was one of Goldsmith's poor coun- 
trymen and hangers-on, by the name of Glover. He had ori- 
ginally been educated for the medical profession, but had taken 
in early life to the stage, though apparently without much suc- 
cess. While performing at Cork, he undertook, partly in jest, 
to restore life to the body of a malefactor, who had just been 
executed. To the astonishment of every one, himself among 
the number, he succeeded. The miracle took wind. He aban- 
doned the stage, resumed the wig and cane, and considered his 
fortune as secure. Unluckily, there were not many dead peo- 
ple to be restored to life in Ireland ; his practice did not equal 
his expectation, so he came to London, where he continued to 
dabble indifferently, and rather unprofitably, in physic and 
literature. 

He was a great frequenter of the Globe and Devil taverns, 
where he used to amuse the company by his talent at story- 
telling and his powers of mimicry, giving capital imitations of 
Garrick, Foote, Colman, Sterne, and other public characters 
of the day. He seldom happened to have money enough to 
pay his reckoning, but was always sure to find some ready 
purse among those who had been amused by his humors. 
Goldsmith, of course, was one of the readiest. It was through 
him that Glover was admitted to the Wednesday Club, of 
which his theatrical imitations became the delight. Glover, 
however, was a little anxious for the dignity of his patron, 
which appeared to him to suffer from the over-familiarity of 
some of the members of the club. He was especially shocked 
by the free and easy tone in which Goldsmith was addressed 
by the pig-butcher : ' ' Come, Noll, " would he say as he pledged 
him, " here's my service to you, old boy !" 

Glover whispered to Goldsmith that he ' ' should not allow 
such liberties." "Let him alone," was the reply, "you'll see 
how civilly I'll let him down." After a time, he called out, 
with marked ceremony and politeness, "Mr. B.,«I have the 
honor of drinking your good health." Alas! dignity was not 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. l;3j 

poor Goldsmith's forte: he could keep no one at a distance. 
"Thank'ee, thank'ee, Noll," nodded the pig-butcher, scarce 
taking the pipe out of his mouth. "I don't see the effect of 
your reproof," whispered Glover. "I give it up," replied 
Goldsmith, with a good-humored shrug, "I ought to have 
known before now there is no putting a pig in the right way." 

Johnson used to be severe upon Goldsmith for mingling in 
these motley circles, observing, that, having been originally 
poor, he had contracted a love for low company. Goldsmith, 
however, was guided not by a taste for what was low, but for 
what was comic and characteristic. It was the feeling of the 
artist ; the feeling which furnished out some of his best scenes 
in familiar life; the feeling with which "rare Ben Jonson" 
sought these very haunts and circles in days of yore, to study 
"Every Man in his Humor." 

It was not always, however, that the humor of these asso- 
ciates was to his taste: as they became boisterous in their 
merriment, he was apt to become depressed. " The company 
of fools," says he, in one of his essays, " may at first make us 
smile; but at last never fails of making us melancholy." 
" Often he would become moody," says Glover, "and would 
leave the party abruptly to go home and brood over his mis- 
fortune." 

It is possible, however, that he went home for quite a differ- 
ent purpose ; to commit to paper some scene or passage sug- 
gested for his comedy of The Good-Natured Man. The ela- 
boration of humor is often a most serious task ; and we have 
never witnessed a more perfect picture of mental misery than 
was once presented to us by a popular dramatic writer— still, 
we hope, living— whom we found in the agonies. of producing 
a farce which subsequently set the theatres in a roar. 



CHAPTER XX. 



THE GREAT CHAM OF LITERATURE AND THE KING— SCENE AT SIR 
JOSHUA REYNOLDS'S — GOLDSMITH ACCUSED OF JEALOUSY- 
NEGOTIATIONS WITH GARRICK— THE AUTHOR AND THE ACTOR 
—THEIR CORRESPONDENCE. 

The comedy of The Good-Natured Man was completed by 
Goldsmith early in 1767, and submitted to the^perusal of John- 



132 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

son, Burke, Reynolds, and others of the literary club, by 
whom it was heartily approved. Johnson, who was seldom 
half way either in censure or applause, pronounced it the best 
comedy that had been written since The Provoked Husband, 
and promised to furnish the prologue. This immediately 
became an object of great solicitude with Goldsmith, knowing 
the weight an introduction from the Great Cham of literature 
would have with the public ; but circumstances occurred which 
he feared might drive the comedy and the prologue from 
Johnson's thoughts. The latter was in the habit of visiting 
the royal library at the Queen's (Buckingham) House, a noble 
collection of books, in the formation of which he had assisted 
the librarian, Mr. Bernard, with his advice. One evening, as 
he was seated there by the fire reading, he was surprised by 
the entrance of the King (George III.), then a young man; who 
sought this occasion to have a conversation with him. The 
conversation was varied and discursive ; the king shifting from 
subject to subject according to his wont; "during the whole 
interview," says Bos well, "Johnson talked to his majesty 
with profound respect, but still in his open, manly manner, 
with a sonorous voice, and never in that subdued tone which 
is commonly used at the levee and in the drawing-room. ' I 
found his majesty wished I should talk,' said he, 'and I made 
it my business to talk. I find it does a man good to be talked 
to by his sovereign. In the first place, a man cannot be in a 
passion — ' " It would have been well for Johnson's colloquial 
disputants, could he have often been under such decorous 
restraint. He retired from the interview highly gratified with 
the conversation of the King and with his gracious behavior. 
"Sir," said he to the librarian, "they may talk of the King as 
they will, but he is the finest gentleman I have ever seen." 
" Sir," said he subsequently to Bennet Langton, "his manners 
are those of as fine a gentleman as we may suppose Lewis the 
Fourteenth or Charles the Second." 

While Johnson's face was still radiant with the reflex of 
royalty, he was holding forth one day to a listening group at 
Sir Joshua Reynolds's, who were anxious to hear every par- 
ticular of this memorable conversation. Among other ques- 
tions, the King had asked him whether he was writing any- 
thing. His reply was that he thought he had already done his 
part as a writer. "I should have thought so too," said the 
King, "if you had not written so well." "No man," said 
Johnson, commenting on this speech, "could have made a 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 133 

handsomer compliment; and it was fit for a king to pay. It 
was decisive." " But did you make no reply to this high com- 
pliment ?'H asked one of the company. "No, sir," replied the 
profoundly deferential Johnson, "when the King had said it, 
it was to be so. It was not for me to bandy civilities with my 
sovereign." 

During all the time that Johnson was thus holding forth, 
Goldsmith, who was present, appeared to take no interest in 
the royal theme, but remained seated on a sofa at a distance, 
in a moody fit of abstraction ; at length recollecting himself, 
he sprang up, and advancing, exclaimed, with what Boswell 
calls his usual "frankness and simplicity," "Well, you ac- 
quitted yourself in this conversation better than I should have 
done, for I should have bowed and stammered through the 
whole of it." He afterward explained his seeming inattention, 
by saying that his mind was completely occupied about his 
play, and by fears lest Johnson, in his present state of royal 
excitement, would fail to furnish the much-desired prologue. 

How natural and truthful is this explanation. Yet Boswell 
presumes to pronounce Goldsmith's inattention affected, and 
attributes it to jealousy. " It was strongly suspected," says 
he, "that he was fretting with chagrin and envy at the singu- 
lar honor Dr. Johnson had lately enjoyed." It needed the 
littleness of mind of Boswell to ascribe such pitiful motives 
to Goldsmith, and to entertain such exaggerated notions of the 
honor paid to Dr. Johnson. 

The Good-Natured Man was now ready for performance, but 
the question was how to get it upon the stage. The affairs of 
Covent Garden, for which it had been intended, were thrown 
in confusion by the recent death of Eich, the manager. Drury 
Lane was under the management of Garrick, but a feud, it 
will be recollected, existed between him and the poet, from the 
animadversions of the latter on the mismanagement of theat- 
rical affairs, and the refusal of the former to give the poet his 
vote for the secretaryship of the Society of Arts. Times, how- 
ever, were changed. Goldsmith when that feud took place 
was an anonymous writer, almost unknown to fame, and of no 
circulation in society. 

Now he had become a literary lion; he was a member 
of the Literary Club; he was the associate of Johnson, 
Burke, Topham Beauclerc, and other magnates— in a word, 
he had risen to consequence in the public eye, and of course 
was of consequence in the eyes of David Garrick. Sir 



134 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Joshua Reynolds saw the lurking scruples of pride exist- 
ing between the author and actor, and thinking it a pity that 
two men of such congenial talents, and who might be so ser- 
viceable to each other, should be kept asunder by a wornout 
pique, exerted his friendly offices to bring them together. The 
meeting took place in Reynolds's house in Leicester Square. 
Garrick, however, could not entirely put off the mock majesty 
of the stage ; he meant to be civil, but he was rather too gra- 
cious and condescending. Tom Davies, in his "Life of Gar- 
rick," gives an amusing picture of the coming together of these 
punctilious parties. "The manager," says he, "was fully 
conscious of his (Goldsmith's) merit, and perhaps more osten- 
tatious of his abilities to serve a dramatic author than became 
a man of his prudence ; Goldsmith was, on his side, as fully 
persuaded of his own importance and independent greatness. 
Mr. Garrick, who had so long been treated with the compli- 
mentary language paid to a successful patentee and admired 
actor, expected that the writer would esteem the patronage of 
his play a favor ; Goldsmith rejected all ideas of kindness in a 
bargain that was intended to be of mutual advantage to both 
parties, and in this he was certainly justifiable ; Mr. Garrick 
could reasonably expect no thanks for the acting a new play, 
which he would have rejected if he had not been convinced it 
would amply reward his pains and expense. I believe the 
manager was willing to accept the play, but he wished to 
be courted to it ; and the doctor was not disposed to purchase 
his friendship by the resignation of his sincerity." They sepa- 
rated, however, with an understanding on the part of Gold- 
smith that his play would be acted. The conduct of Garrick 
subsequently proved evasive, not through any lingerings of 
past hostility, but from habitual indecision in matters of the 
kind, and from real scruples of delicacy. He did not think the 
piece likely to succeed on the stage, and avowed that opinion 
to Reynolds and Johnson; but hesitated to say as much to 
Goldsmith, through fear of wounding his feelings. A further 
misunderstanding was the result of this want of decision and 
frankness ; repeated interviews and some correspondence took 
place without bringing matters to a point, and in the meantime 
the theatrical season passed away. 

Goldsmith's pocket, never well supplied, suffered grievously 
by this delay, and he considered himself entitled to call upon 
the manager, who still talked of acting the play, to advance 
Jjim forty pounds upon $ note of the younger ^ewbery. Gar- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 135 

rick readily complied, but subsequently suggested certain im- 
portant alterations in the comedy as indispensable to its 
success ; these were indignantly rejected by the author, but 
pertinaciously insisted on by the manager. Garrick proposed 
to leave the matter to the arbitration of Whitehead, the lau- 
reate, who officiated as his "reader" and elbow critic. Gold- 
smith was more indignant than ever, and a violent dispute 
ensued, which was only calmed by the interference of Burke 
and Reynolds. 

Just at this time order came out of confusion in the affairs of 
Covent Garden. A pique having risen between Colman and 
Garrick, in the course of their joint authorship of The Clandes- 
tine Marriage, the former had become manager and part pro- 
prietor of Covent Garden, and was preparing to open a power- 
ful competition with his former colleague. On hearing of this, 
Goldsmith made overtures to Colman ; who, without waiting 
to consult his fellow proprietors, who were absent, gave 
instantly a favorable reply. Goldsmith felt the contrast of this 
warm, encouraging conduct, to the chilling delays and objec^ 
tions of Garrick. He at once abandoned his piece to the 
discretion of Colman. "Dear sir," says he in a letter dated 
Temple Garden Court, July 9th, "I am very much obliged to 
you for your kind partiality in my favor, and your tenderness 
in shortening the interval of my expectation. That the play is 
liable to many objections I well know, but I am happy that 
it is in hands the most capable in the world of removing 
them. If then, dear sir, you will complete your favor by put- 
ting the piece into such a state as it may be acted, or of direct- 
ing me how to do it, I shall ever retain a sense of your goodness 
to me. And indeed, though most probably this be the last I 
shall ever write, yet I can't help feeling a secret satisfaction 
that poets for the future are likely to have a protector who de- 
clines taking advantage of their dLreadf ul situation ; and scorns 
that importance which may be acquired by trifling with their 
anxieties." 

The next day Goldsmith wrote to Garrick, who was at Lich- 
field, informing him of his having transferred his piece to 
Covent Garden, for which it had been originally written, and 
by the patentee of which it was claimed, observing, "As I 
found you had very great difficulties about that piece, I com- 
plied with his desire. ... I am extremely sorry that you 
should think me warm at our last meeting; your judgment 
certainly ought to be free, especially in a matter which must in 



136 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

some measure concern your own credit and interest. I assure 
you, sir, I have no disposition to differ with you on this or any 
other account, but am, with a high opinion of your abilities, 
and a very real esteem, Sir, your most obedient humble ser- 
vant, Oliver Goldsmith." 

In his reply, Garrick observed, "I was, indeed, much hurt 
that your warmth at our last meeting mistook my sincere and 
friendly attention to your play for the remains of a former 
misunderstanding, which I had as much forgot as if it had 
never existed. What I said to you at my own house I now re- 
peat, that I felt more pain in giving my sentiments than you 
possibly would in receiving them. It has been the business, 
and ever will be, of my life to live on the best terms with men 
of genius ; and I know that Dr. Goldsmith will have no reason 
to change his previous friendly disposition toward me, as I 
shall be glad of every future opportunity to convince him how 
much I am his obedient servant and well-wisher, D. Garrick." 



CHAPTER XXI. 



MORE HACK AUTHORSHIP — TOM DAVIES AND THE ROMAN HISTORY 
— CANONBURY CASTLE— POLITICAL AUTHORSHIP — PECUNIARY 
TEMPTATION — DEATH OF NEWBERY THE ELDER. 

Though Goldsmith's comedy was now in train to be per- 
formed, it could not be brought out before Christmas ; in the 
meantime, he must live. Again, therefore, he had to resort, to 
literary jobs for his daily support. These obtained for him 
petty occasional sums, the largest of which was ten pounds, 
from the elder Newbery, for an historical compilation; but 
this scanty rill of quasi patronage, so sterile in its products, 
was likely soon to cease ;%Newbery being too ill to attend to 
business, and having to transfer the whole management of it 
to his nephew. 

At this time Tom Davies, the sometime Roscius, sometime 
bibliopole, stepped forward to Goldsmith's relief, and proposed 
that he should undertake an easy popular history of Rome in 
two volumes. An arrangement was soon made. Goldsmith 
undertook to complete it in two years, if possible, for two hun- 
dred and fifty guineas, and forthwith set about his task with 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 137 

cheerful alacrity. As usual, he sought a rural retreat during ' 
the summer months, where he might alternate his literary 
labors with strolls about the green fields. "Merry Islington" 
was again his resort, but he now aspired to better quarters/ 
than formerly, and engaged the chambers occupied occasion- 
ally by Mr. Newbery in Canonbury House, or Castle as it is 
popularly called. This had been a hunting lodge of Queen 
Elizabeth, in whose time it was surrounded by parks and for- 
ests. In Goldsmith's day, nothing remained of it but an old 
brick tower ; it was still in the country, amid rural scenery, 
and was a favorite nestling-place of authors, publishers, and 
others of the literary order. * A number of these he had for 
fellow occupants of the castle ; and they formed a temporary 
club, which held its meetings at the Crown Tavern, on the 
Islington lower road ; and here he presided in his own genial 
style, and was the life and delight of the company. 

The writer of these pages visited old Canonbury Castle some 
years since, out of regard to the memory of Goldsmith. The 
apartment was still shown which the poet had inhabited, con- 
sisting of a sitting-room and small bedroom, with panelled 
wainscots and Gothic windows. The quaintness and quietude 
of the place were still attractive. It was one of the resorts of 
citizens on their Sunday walks, who would ascend to the top 
of the tower and amuse themselves with reconnoitring the 
city through a telescope. Not far from this tower were the 
gardens of the White Conduit House, a Cockney Elysium, 
where Goldsmith used to figure in the humbler days of his for- 
tune. In the first edition of his ' ' Essays" he speaks of a stroll 
in these gardens, where he at that time, no doubt, thought him- 
- self in perfectly genteel society. After his rise in the world, 
however, he became too knowing to speak of such plebeian 
haunts. In a new edition of his "Essays," therefore, the 
White Conduit House and its garden disappears, and he speaks 
of "a stroll in the Park." 



* See on the distant slope, majestic shows 
Old Canonbury's tower, an ancient pile 
To various fates assigned ; and where by turns 
Meanness and grandeur have alternate reign'd; 
Thither, in latter days, hath genius fled 
From yonder city, to respire and die. 
There the sweet bard of Auburn sat, and tuned 
The plaintive moanings of his village dirge. 
There learned Chambers treasured lore for men, 
And Newbery there his A B C's for babes. 



138 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

While Goldsmith was literally living from hand to mouth 
by the forced drudgery of the pen, his independence of spirit 
was subjected to a sore pecuniary trial. It was the opening of 
Lord North's administration, a time of great political excite- 
ment. The public mind was agitated by the question of Amer- 
ican taxation, and other questions of like irritating tendency. 
Junius and Wilkes and other powerful writers were attacking 
the administration with all their force; Grub Street was stirred 
up to its lowest depths ; inflammatory talent of all kinds was 
in full activity, and the kingdom was deluged with pamphlets, 
lampoons and libel's of the grossest kinds. The ministry were 
looking anxiously round for literary support. It was thought 
that the pen of Goldsmith might be readily enlisted. His hos- 
pitable friend and countryman, Robert Nugent, politically 
known as Squire Gawky, had come out strenuously tor colo- 
nial taxation ; had been selected for a lordship of the board of 
trade, and raised to the ranis: of Baron Nugent and Viscount 
Clare. His example, it was thought, would be enough of 
itself to bring Goldsmith into the ministerial ranks, and then 
what writer of the day was proof against a full purse or a pen- 
sion? Accordingly one Parson Scott, chaplain to Lord Sand- 
wich, and author of Ante Sejanus Panurge, and other political 
libels in support of the administration, was sent to negotiate 
with the poet, who at this time was returned to town. Dr. 
Scott, in after years, when his political subserviency had been 
rewarded by two fat crown livings, used to make what he con- 
sidered a good story out of this embassy to the poet. "I found 
him," said he, " in a miserable suit oi chambers in the Temple. 
I told him my authority : I told how I was empowered to pay 
most liberally for his exertions ; and, would you believe it ! he 
was so absurd as to say, ■ I can earn as much as will supply my 
wants without writing for any party ; the assistance you offer 
is therefore unnecessary to me ; '—and so I left him in his gar- 
ret 1" Who does not admire the sturdy independence of poor 
Goldsmith toiling in his garret for nine guineas the job, and 
smile with contempt at the indignant wonder of the political 
divine, albeit his subserviency was repaid by two fat crown 
livings? 

Not long after this occurrence, Goldsmith's old friend, 
though frugal-handed employer, Newbery, of picture-book 
renown, closed his mortal career. The poet has celebrated him 
as the friend of all mankind ; he certainly lost nothing by his 
friendship. He coined the brains of his authors in the times of 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 139 

their exigency, and made them pay dear for the plant put out 
to keep them from drowning. It is not likely his death caused 
much lamentation among the scribbling tribe; we may ex- 
press decent respect for the memory of the just, but we shed 
tears only at the grave of the generous. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THEATRICAL MANOEUVRING— THE COMEDY OF "FALSE DELICACY" 
— FIRST PERFORMANCE OF "THE GOOD-NATURED MAN" — CON- 
DUCT OF JOHNSON — CONDUCT OF THE AUTHOR— INTERMEDDLING 
OF THE PRESS. 

The comedy of The Good-Navured Man was doomed to ex- 
perience delays and difficulties to the very last. Garrick, not- 
withstanding his professions, had still a lurking grudge against 
the author, and tasked his managerial arts to thwart him in his 
theatrical enterprise. For this purpose he undertook to build 
up Hugh Kelly, Goldsmith's boon companion of the Wednes- 
day Club, as a kind of rival. Kelly had written a comedy 
called False Delicacy, in which were embodied all the meretri- 
cious qualities of the sentimental school. Garrick, though he 
had decried that school, and had brought out his comedy of 
The Clandestine Marriage in opposition to it, now lauded 
False Delicacy to the skies, and prepared to bring it out at 
Drury Lane with all possible stage effect. He even went so 
far as to write a prologue and epilogue for it, and to touch up 
some parts of the dialogue. He had become reconciled to his 
former colleague, Colman, and it is intimated that one condi- 
tion in the treaty of peace between these potentates of the 
realms of pasteboard (equally prone to play into each other's 
hands with the confederate potentates on the great theatre of 
life) was, that Goldsmith's play should be kept back until 
Kelly's had been brought forward. 

In the mean time, the poor author, little dreaming of the 
deleterious influence at work behind the scenes, saw the ap- 
pointed time arrive and pass by without the performance of 
his play ; while False Delicacy was brought out at Drury Lane 
(January 23, 1768) with all the trickery of managerial manage 
ment. Houses were packed to applaud it to the echo; the 



140 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

newspapers vied with each other in their venal praises, and 
night after night seemed to give it a fresh triumph. 

While False Delicacy was thus borne on the full tide of fic- 
titious prosperity, The Goocl-Natured Man was creeping through 
the last rehearsals at Covent Garden. The success of the rival 
piece threw a damp upon author, manager, and actors. Gold- 
smith went about with a face full of anxiety ; Column's hopes 
in the piece declined at each rehearsal ; as to his fellow pro- 
prietors, they declared they had never entertained any. All 
the actors were discontented with their parts, excepting Ned 
Shuter, an excellent low comedian, and a pretty actress named 
Miss Waif ord • both of whom the poor author ever afterward 
held in grateful 'recollection. 

Johnson, Goldsmith's growling monitor and unsparing casti- 
gator in times of heedless levity, stood by him at present with 
that protecting kindness with which he ever befriended him in 
time of need. He attended the rehearsals ; he furnished the 
prologue according to promise ; he pish'd and pshaw'd at any 
doubts and fears on the part of the author, but gave him sound 
counsel, and held him up with a steadfast and manly hand. 
Inspirited by his sympathy, Goldsmith plucked up new heart, 
and arrayed himself for the grand trial with unusual care. 
Ever since his elevation into the polite world, he had improved 
in his wardrobe and toilet. Johnson could no longer accuse 
him of being shabby in his appearance ; he rather went to the 
other extreme. On the present occasion there is an entry in 
the books of his tailor, Mr. William Filby, of a suit of 
' ' Tyrian bloom, satin grain, and garter blue silk breeches, £8 
2s. 7cZ." Thus magnificently attired, he attended the theatre 
and watched the reception of the play, and the effect of each 
individual scene, with that vicissitude of feeling incident to 
his mercurial nature. 

Johnson's prologue was solemn in itself, and being delivered 
by Brinsley in lugubrious tones suited to the ghost in Hamlet, 
seemed to throw a portentous gloom on the audience. Some 
of the scenes met with great applause, and at such times Gold- 
smith was highly elated ; others went off coldly, or there were 
slight tokens of disapprobation, and then his spirits would sink. 
The fourth act saved the piece ; for Shuter, who had the main 
comic character of Croaker, was so varied and ludicrous in his 
execution of the scene in which he reads an incendiary letter, 
that he drew down thunders of applause. On his coming be- 
hind the scenes, Goldsmith greeted him with an overflowing 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 141 

heart ; declaring that he exceeded his own idea of the charac- 
ter, and made it almost as new to him as to any of the audi- 
ence. 

On the whole, however, both the author and his friends were 
disappointed at the reception of the piece, and considered it a 
failure. Poor Goldsmith left the theatre with his towering 
hopes completely cut down. He endeavored to hide his morti- 
fication, and even to assume an air of unconcern while among 
his associates ; but, the moment he was alone with Dr. John- 
son^ in whose rough but magnanimous nature he reposed un- 
limited confidence, he threw off all restraint and gave way to 
an almost childlike burst of grief. Johnson, who had shown 
no want of sympathy at the proper time, saw nothing in the 
partial disappointment of overrated expectations to warrant 
such ungoverned emotions, and rebuked him sternly for what 
he termed a silly affectation, saying that ' ' No man should be 
expected to sympathize with the sorrows of vanity. " 

When Goldsmith had recovered from the blow, he, with his 
usual unreserve, made his past distress a subject of amusement 
to his friends. Dining, one day, in company with Dr. John- 
son, at the chaplain's table at St. James's Palace, he enter- 
tained the company with a particular and comic account of all 
his feelings on the night of representation, and his despair when 
the piece was hissed. How he went, he said, to the Literary 
Club ; chatted gayly, as if nothing had gone amiss ; and, to give 
a greater idea of his unconcern, sang his favorite song about 
an old woman tossed in a blanket seventeen times as high as 
the moon. . . . u All this while," added he, " I was suffering 
horrid tortures, and, had I put a bit in my mouth, I verily be- 
lieve it would have strangled me on the spot, I was so exces- 
sively ill: but I made more noise than usual to cover all that; 
so they never perceived my not eating, nor suspected the an- 
guish of my heart ; but, when all were gone except Johnson 
here, I burst out a-crying, and even swore that I would never 
write again." 

Dr. Johnson sat in amaze at the odd frankness and childlike 
self -accusation of poor Goldsmith. When the latter had come 
to a pause, " All this, doctor," said he dryly, " I thought had 
been a secret between you and me, and I am sure I would not 
have said anything about it for the world." But Goldsmith 
had no secrets : his follies, his weaknesses, his errors were all 
thrown to the surface ; his heart was really too guileless and 
innocent to seek mvstery and concealment, It is too often the 



142 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

false, designing man that is guarded in his conduct and never 
offends proprieties. 

It is singular, however, that Goldsmith, who thus in conver- 
sation could keep nothing to himself, should be the author of a 
maxim which would inculcate the most thorough dissimula- 
tion. "Men of the world," says he, in one of his papers of the 
Bee, "maintain that the true end of speech is not so much to 
express our wants as to conceal them." How often is this 
quoted as one of the subtle remarks of the fine-witted Talley- 
rand! 

The Good-Natured Man was performed for ten nights in 
succession; the third, sixth, and ninth nights were for the 
author's benefit; the fifth night it was commanded by their 
majesties; after this it was played occasionally, but rarely, 
having always pleased more in the closet than on the stage. 

As to Kelly's comedy, Johnson pronounced it entirely devoid 
of character, and it has long since passed into oblivion. Yet 
it is an instance how an inferior production, by dint of puffing 
and trumpeting, may be kept up for a time on the surface of 
popular opinion, or rather of popular talk. What had been 
done for False Delicacy on the stage was continued by the 
press. The booksellers vied with the manager in launching it 
upon the town. They announced that the first impression of 
three thousand copies was exhausted before two o'clock on the 
day of publication ; four editions, amounting to ten thousand 
copies, were sold in the course of the season ; a public break- 
fast was given to Kelly at the Chapter Coffee House, and a 
piece of plate presented to him by the publishers. The com- 
parative merits of the two plays were continually subjects of 
discussion in green-rooms, coffee-houses, and other places 
where theatrical questions were discussed. 

Goldsmith's old enemy, Kenrick, that "viper of the press," 
endeavored on this as on many other occasions to detract from 
his well-earned fame; the poet was excessively sensitive to 
these attacks, and had not the art and self-command to conceal 
his feelings. 

Some scribblers on the other side insinuated that Kelly had 
seen the manuscript of Goldsmith's play, while in the hands of 
Garrick or elsewhere, and had borrowed some of the situations 
and sentiments. Some of the wags of the day took a mis- 
chievous pleasure in stirring up a feud between the two authors. 
Goldsmith became nettled, though he could scarcely be deemed 
jealous of one so far his inferior, He spoke disparagingly 



OLIVER &0LDSMIT2T. 143 

though no doubt sincerely, of Kelly's play: the latter retorted. 
Still, when they met one day behind the scenes of Covent 
Garden, Goldsmith, with his customary urbanity, congratu- 
lated Kelly on his success. "If I thought you sincere, Mr. 
Goldsmith," replied the other, abruptly, "I should thank you." 
Goldsmith was not a man to harbor spleen Or ill-will, and soon 
laughed at this unworthy rivalship : but the jealousy and envy 
awakened in Kelly's mind long continued. He is even accused 
of having given vent to his hostility by anonymoug attacks in 
the newspapers, the basest resource of dastardly and malig- 
nant spirits ; but of this there is no positive proof. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

BURNING THE CANDLE AT BOTH ENDS— FINE APARTMENTS— FINE 
FURNITURE — FINE CLOTHES — FINE ACQUAINTANCES — SHOE- 
MAKER'S HOLIDAY AND JOLLY PIGEON ASSOCIATES — PETER 
BARLOW, GLOVER, AND THE HAMPSTEAD HOAX — POOR FRIENDS 
AMONG GREAT ACQUAINTANCES. 

/ The profits resulting from The Good-Natured Man were be- 
yond any that Goldsmith had yet derived from his works. He 
netted about four hundred pounds from the theatre, and one 
hundred pounds from his publisher. 

Five hundred pounds! and all at one miraculous draught! 
It appeared to him wealth inexhaustible. It at once opened his 
heart and hand, and led him into all kinds of extravagance. 
The first symptom was ten guineas sent to Shuter for a box 
ticket for his benefit, when The Good-Natured Man was to be 
performed. The next was an entire change in his domicile. 
The shabby lodgings with Jeffs the butler, in which he had 
been worried by Johnson's scrutiny, were now exchanged for 
chambers more becoming a man of his ample fortune. The 
apartments consisted of three rooms on the second floor of No. 
2 Brick Court, Middle Temple, on the right hand ascending the 
staircase, and overlooked the umbrageous walks of the Temple 
garden. The lease he purchased for £400, and then went on to 
furnish his rooms with mahogany sofas, card-tables, and book- 
cases ; with curtains, mirrors, and Wilton carpets. His awk- 
ward little person was also furnished out in a style befitting 
his apartment; for, in addition to his suit of "Tyrian bloom, 



144 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

satin grain," we find another charged about this time, in th§ 
books of Mr. Filby, in no less gorgeous terms, being "lined 
with silk and furnished with gold buttons," Thus lodged and 
thus arrayed, he invited the visits of his most aristocratic ac- 
quaintances, and no longer quailed beneath the courtly eye of 
Beauclerc. He gave dinners to Johnson, Eeynolds, Percy, 
Bickerstaff, and other friends of note; and supper parties to 
young folks of both sexes. These last were preceded by round 
games of cards, at which there was more laughter than skill, 
and in which the sport was to cheat each other ; or by romping 
games of forfeits and blind-man's buff, at which he enacted 
the lord of misrule, Blackstone, whose chambers were imme- 
diately below, and who was studiously occupied on his ' ' Com- 
mentaries," used to complain of the racket made overhead by 
his revelling neighbor. 

Sometimes Goldsmith would make up a rural party, com- 
posed of four or five of his "jolly pigeon" friends, to enjoy 
what he humorously called a "shoemaker's holiday." These 
would assemble at his chambers in the morning, to partake of 
a plentiful and rather expensive breakfast; the remains of 
which, with his customary benevolence, he generally gave to 
some poor woman in attendance. The repast ended, the party 
would set out on foot, in high spirits, making extensive ram- 
bles by foot-paths and green lanes to Blackheath, Wandsworth, 
Chelsea, Hampton Court, Highgate, or some other pleasant 
resort, within a few miles of London. A simple but gay and 
heartily relished dinner, at a country inn, crowned the excur- 
sion. In the evening they strolled back to town, all the better 
in health and spirits for a day spent in rural and social enjoy- 
ment. Occasionally, when extravagantly inclined, they ad- 
journed from dinner to drink tea at the White Conduit House ; 
and, now and then, concluded their festive day by supping at 
the Grecian or Temple Exchange Coffee Houses, or at the 
Globe Tavern, in Fleet Street. The whole expenses of the day 
never exceeded a crown, and were oftener from three and six' 
pence to four shillings ; for the best part of their entertainment, 
sweet air and rural scenes, excellent exercise and joyous con- 
versation, cost nothing. 

One of Goldsmith's humble companions, on these excursions, 
was his occasional amanuensis, Peter Barlow, whose quaint 
peculiarities afforded much amusement to the company. Peter 
was poor but punctilious, squaring his expenses according to 
his means. He always wore the same garb ; fixed his regular 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 145 

expenditure for dinner at a trifling sum, which, if left to him- 
self, he never exceeded, but which he always insisted on paying. 
His oddities always made him a welcome companion on the 
"shoemaker's holidays." The dinner, on these occasions, gen- 
erally exceeded considerably his tariff; he put down, however, 
no more than his regular sum, and Goldsmith made up the 
difference. 

Another of these hangers-on, for whom, on such occasions, 
he was content to "pay the shot, "was his countryman, Glover! 
of whom mention has already been made, as one of the wags 
and sponges of the Globe and Devil taverns, and a prime mimic 
at the Wednesday Club. 

This vagabond genius has bequeathed us a whimsical story 
of one of his practical jokes upon Goldsmith, in the course of a 
rural excursion in tbe vicinity of London. They had dined at 
an inn on Hampstead Heights, and were descending the hill, 
when, in passing a cottage, they saw through the open window 
a party at tea. Goldsmith, who was fatigueo*, cast a wistful 
glance at the cheerful tea-table. "How I should like to be of 
that party," exclaimed he. "Nothing more easy," replied 
Glover, "allow me to introduce you." So saying, he entered 
the house with an air of the most perfect familiarity, though 
an utter stranger, and was followed by the unsuspecting Gold- 
smith, who supposed, of course, that he was a friend of the 
family. The owner of the house rose on the entrance of the 
strangers. The undaunted Glover shook hands with him in 
the most cordial manner possible, fixed his eye on one of the 
company who had a peculiarly good-natured physiognomy, 
muttered something like a recognition, and forthwith launched 
into an amusing story, invented at the moment, of something 
which he pretended had occurred upon the road. The host 
supposed the new-comers were friends of. his guests; the guests 
that they were friends of the host. Glover did not give them 
time to find out the truth. He followed one droll story with 
another; brought his powers of mimicry into play, and kept 
the company in a roar. Tea was offered and accepted ■ an hour 
went off in the most sociable manner imaginable, at the end of 
which Glover bowed himself and his companion out of the 
house with many facetious last words, leaving the host and 
his company to compare notes, and to find out what an im- 
pudent intrusion they had experienced. 

Nothing could exceed the dismay and vexation of Goldsmith 
when triumphantly told by Glover that it was all a hoax, and 



146 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

that he did not know a single soul in the house. His first 
impulse was to return instantly and vindicate himself from all 
participation in the jest ; but a few words from his free and 
easy companion dissuaded him. " Doctor," said he, coolly, 
' ' we are unknown ; you quite as much as I ; if you return and 
tell the story, it will be in the newspapers to-morrow; nay, 
upon recollection, I remember in one of their offices the face of 
that squinting fellow who sat in the corner as if he was trea- 
suring up my stories for future use, and] we shall be sure of 
being exposed ; let us therefore keep our own counsel. " 

This story was frequently afterward told by Glover, with rich 
dramatic effect, repeating and exaggerating the conversation, 
and mimicking, in ludicrous style, the embarrassment, surprise, 
and subsequent indignation of Goldsmith. 

It is a trite saying that a wheel cannot run in two ruts; nor 
/a man keep two opposite sets of intimates. Goldsmith some- 
times found his old friends of the " jolly pigeon" order turning 
up rather awkwardly when he was in company with his new 
aristocratic acquaintances. He gave a whimsical account of 
the sudden apparition of one of them at his gay apartments in 
the Temple, who may have been a welcome visitor at his 
squalid quarters in Green Arbor Court. ' ' How do you think 
he served me?" said he to a friend. "Why, sir, after staying 
away two years, he came one evening into my chambers, half 
drunk, as I was taking a glass of wine with Topham Beauclerc 
and General Oglethorpe ; and sitting himself down, with most 
intolerable assurance inquired after my health and literary 
pursuits, as if he were upon the most friendly footing. I was 
at first so much ashamed of ever having known such a fellow, 
that I stifled my resentment, and drew him into a conversation 
on such topics as I knew he could talk upon ; in which, to do 
him justice, he acquitted himself very reputably ; when all of 
a sudden, as if recollecting something, he pulled two papers 
out of his pocket, which he presented to me with great cere- 
mony, saying, ' Here, my dear friend, is a quarter of a pound 
of tea, and a half pound of sugar, I have brought you; for 
though it is not in my power at present to pay you the two 
guineas you so generously lent me, you, nor any man else, 
shall ever have it to say that I want gratitude.' This," added 
Goldsmith, "was too much. I could no longer keep in my 
feelings, but desired him to turn out of my chambers directly; 
which he very coolly did, taking up his tea and sugar; and I 
never saw him afterward." 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 147 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

REDUCED AGAIN TO BOOK-BUILDING— RURAL RETREAT AT SHOE- 
MAKER'S PARADISE— DEATH OF HENRY GOLDSMITH— TRIBUTES 
TO HIS MEMORY IN " THE DESERTED VILLAGE." 

The heedless expenses of Goldsmith, as may easily be sup- 
posed, soon brought him to the end of his "prize money," but 
when his purse gave out he drew upon futurity, obtaining 
advances from his booksellers and loans from his friends in the 
confident hope of soon turning up another trump. The debts 
which he thus thoughtlessly incurred in consequence of a 
transient gleam of prosperity embarrassed him for the rest of 
his life; so that the success of the Good-Natured Man may be 
said to have been ruinous to him. 

He was soon obliged to resume his old craft of book-building, 
;and set about his History of Rome, undertaken for Davies. 

It was his custom, as we have shown, during the summer 
time, when pressed by a multiplicity of literary jobs, or urged 
to the accomplishment of some particular task, to take country 
lodgings a few miles from town, generally on the Harrow or 
Edgeware roads, and Wry himself there for weeks and months 
together. Sometimes he would remain closely occupied in his 
room, at other times he would stroll out along the lanes and 
hedge-rows, and taking out paper and pencil, note down 
thoughts to be expanded and connected at home. His summer 
retreat for the present year, 1768, was a little cottage with a 
garden, pleasantly situated about eight miles from town on the 
Edgeware road. He took it in conjunction with a Mr. Edmund 
Botts, a barrister and man of letters, his neighbor in the Tem- 
ple, having rooms immediately opposite him on the same floor. 
They had become cordial intimates, and Botts was one of those 
with whom Goldsmith now and then took the friendly but 
pernicious liberty of borrowing. 

The cottage which they had hired belonged to a rich shoe- 
maker of Piccadilly, who had embellished his little domain of 
half an acre with statues and jets, and all the decorations of 
landscape gardening; in consequence of which Goldsmith gave 
it the name of The Shoemaker's Paradise. As his fellow- 
occupant, Mr. Botts, drove a gig, he sometimes, in an interval 



148 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

of literary labor, accompanied him to town, partook of a social 
dinner there, and returned with him in the evening. On one 
occasion, when they had probably lingered too long at the 
table, they came near breaking their necks on their way 
homeward by driving against a post on the sidewalk, while 
Botts was proving by the force of legal eloquence that they 
were in the very middle of the broad Edgeware road. 

In the course of this summer Goldsmith's career of gay- 
ety was suddenly brought to a pause by intelligence of the 
death of his brother Henry, then but forty-five years of age. 
He had led a quiet and blameless life amid the scenes of his 
youth, fulfilling the duties of village pastor with unaffected 
piety; conducting the school at Lissoy with a degree of in- 
dustry and ability that gave it celebrity, and acquitting him- 
self in all the duties of life with undeviating rectitude and the 
mildest benevolence. How truly Goldsmith loved and vener- 
ated him is evident in all his letters and throughout his works ; 
in which his brother continually forms his model for an ex- 
emplification of all the most endearing of the Christian 
virtues ; yet his affection at his death was embittered by the 
fear that he died with some doubt upon his mind of the 
warmth of his affection. Goldsmith had been urged by his 
friends in Ireland, since his elevation in the world, to use his 
influence with the great, which they supposed to be all power- 
ful, in favor of Henry, to obtain for him church preferment. 
He did exert himself as far as his diffident nature would 
permit, but without success; we have seen that, in the case 
of the Earl of Northumberland, when, as Lord Lieutenant of 
Ireland, that nobleman proffered him his patronage, he asked 
nothing for himself, but only spoke on behalf of his brother. 
Still some of his friends, ignorant of what he had done and of 
how little he was able to do, accused him of negligence. It is 
not likely, however, that his amiable and estimable brother 
joined in the accusation. 

"" To the tender and melancholy recollections of his early days 
awakened by the death of this loved companion of his child- 
hood, we may attribute some of the most heartfelt passages in 
his " Deserted Village." Much of that poem, we are told, was 
composed this summer, in the course of solitary strolls about 
the green lanes and beautifully rural scenes of the neighbor- 
hood ; and thus much of the softness and sweetness of English 
landscape became blended with the ruder features of Lissoy. 
It was in these lonely and subdued moments, when tender 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 149 

regret was half mingled with self -upbraiding, that he poured 
forth that homage of the heart, rendered as it were at the 
grave of his brother. The picture of the village pastor in this 
poem which, we have already hinted, was taken in part from 
the character of his father, embodied likewise the recollection* 
of his brother Henry ; for the natures of the father and son 
seem to have been identical. In the following lines, however, 
Goldsmith evidently contrasted the quiet, settled life of his 
brother, passed at home in the benevolent exercise of the 
Christian duties, with his own restless, vagrant career: 

Remote from towns he ran his godly race, 

Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place." 

To us the whole character seems traced as it were in an expia- 
tory spirit; as if, conscious of his own wandering restlessness, 
he sought to humble himself at the shrine of exceUence which 
he had not been able to practise; 

" At church, with meek and 'uiaffected grace, 
His looks adorn'd the venerable place; 
Truth from his lips prevail d with double sway, 
And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray. 
The service past, around the pious man, 
With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran; 
Even children follow'd, with endearing wile, 
And pluck' d his gown, to share the good man's smile: 
His ready smile a parent's warmth express'd, 
Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distress'd; 
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, 
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. 
****** *#*. 

And as a bird each fond endearment tries 
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, 
He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay, 
Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



DINNER AT BICKERSTAFF'S— HIPFERNAN AND HIS IMPECUNIOSITY— 
KENRICK'S EPIGRAM — JOHNSON'S CONSOLATION — GOLDSMITH'S 
TOILET— THE BLOOM-COLORED COAT— NEW ACQUAINTANCES— 
THE HORNECKS— A TOUCH OF POETRY AND PASSION— THE 
JESSAMY BRIDE. 

In October Goldsmith returned to town and resumed his 
usual haunts. We hear cf him at a dinner given by his. 



— 



150 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

countryman, Isaac Bickerstaff, author of " Love in a Tillage," 
"Lionel and Clarissa," and other successful dramatic pieces. 
The dinner was to be followed by the reading by Bickerstaff 
of a new play. Among the guests was one Paul Hiffernan, 
likewise an Irishman; somewhat idle and intemperate; who 
lived nobody knew how nor where, sponging wherever he had 
a chance, and often of course upon Goldsmith, who was ever 
the vagabond's friend, or rather victim. Hiffernan was some- 
thing of a physician, and elevated the emptiness of his purse 
into the dignity of a disease, which he termed impecuniosity, 
and against which he claimed a right to call for relief from 
the healthier purses of his friends. He was a scribbler for the 
newspapers, and latterly a dramatic critic, which had proba- 
bly gained him an invitation to the dinner and reading. The 
wine and wassail, however, befogged his senses. Scarce had 
the author got into the second act of his play, when Hiffernan 
began to nod, and at length snored outright. Bickerstaff was 
embarrassed, but continued to read in a more elevated tone. 
The louder he read, the louder Hiffernan snored; until the 
author came to a pause. "Never mind the brute, Bick, but 
go on," cried Goldsmith. " He would have served Homer just 
so if he were here and reading his own works." 

Kenrick, Goldsmith's old enemy, travestied this anecdote in 
the following lines, pretending that the poet had compared his 
countryman Bickerstaff to Homer. 

" What are your Bretons, Romans, Grecians, 
Compared with thorough-bred Milesians! 
Step into Griffin's shop, he'll tell ye 
Of Goldsmith, Bickerstaff, and Kelly ... 
And, take one Irish evidence for t'other. 
E'en Homer's self is but their foster brother." 

Johnson was a rough consoler to a man when wincing under 
an attack of this kind. "Never mind, sir," said he to Gold- 
smith, when he saw that he felt the sting. ' ' A man whose 
business it is to be talked of is much helped by being attacked. 
Fame, sir, is a shuttlecock ; if it be struck only at one end of 
the room, it will soon fall to the ground ; to keep it up, it must 
be struck at both ends. " 

Bickerstaff, at the time of which we are speaking, was in high 
vogue, the associate of the first wits of the day ; a few years 
afterward he was obliged to fly the country to escape the 
punishment of an infamous crime. Johnson expressed great 
astonishment at hearing the offence for which he had fled. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 151 

u Why, sir," said Thrale ; " he had long been a suspected man." 
Perhaps there was a knowing look on the part of the eminent 
brewer, which provoked a somewhat contemptuous reply. 
"By those who look close to the ground," said Johnson, " dirt 
will sometimes be seen; I hope I see things from a greater dis- 
trance " 

We have already noticed the improvement, or rather the 
increased expense, of Goldsmith's wardrobe since his eleva- 
tion into polite society. "He was fond," says one of his con- 
temporaries, "of exhibiting his muscular little person in the 
gayest apparel of the day, to which was added a bag-wig and 
sword." Thus arrayed, he used to figure about in the sunshine 
in the Temple Gardens, much to his own satisfaction, but to 
the amusement of his acquaintances. 

Boswell, in his memoirs, has rendered one of his suits forever 
famous. That worthy, on the 16th of October in the same 
year, gave a dinner to Johnson, Goldsmith, Reynolds, Garrick, 
Murphy, Bickerstaff , and Davies. Goldsmith was generally 
apt to bustle in at the last moment, when the guests were 
taking their seats at table, but on this occasion he was unusu- 
ally early. While waiting for some lingerers to arrive, "he 
strutted about," says Boswell, "bragging of his dress, and, I 
believe, was seriously vain of it, for his mind was undoubtedly 
prone to such impressions. ■ Come, come,' said Garrick, ' talk 
no more of that. You are perhaps the worst— eh, eh? ' Gold- 
smith was eagerly attempting to interrupt him, when Garrick 
went on, laughing ironically, 'Nay, you will always Zoofc like 
a gentleman ; but I am talking of your being well or ill dressed. ' 
'Well, let me tell you,' said Goldsmith, 'when the tailor 
brought home my bloom-colored coat, he said, "Sir, I have a 
favor to beg of you; when anybody asks you who made your 
clothes, be pleased to mention John Filby, at the Harrow, in 
Water Lane." ' * Why, sir, ' cried Johnson, ' that was because 
he knew the strange color would attract crowds to gaze at it, 
and thus they might hear of him, and see how well he could 
make a coat of so absurd a color.' " 

But though Goldsmith might permit this raillery on the part 
of his friends, he was quick to resent any personalities of the 
kind from strangers. As he was one day walking the Strand 
in grand array with bag-wig and sword, he excited the merri- 
ment of two coxcombs, one of whom called to the other to 
"look at that fly with a long pin stuck through it." Stung to 
the quick, Goldsmith's first retort was to caution the passers- 



152 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

by to be on their guard against ' ' that brace of disguised pick- 
pockets" — his next was to step into the middle of the street, 
where there was room for action, half draw his sword, and 
beckon the joker, who was armed in like manner, to follow 
him. This was literally a war of wit which the other had not 
anticipated. He had no inclination to push the joke to such 
an extreme, but abandoning the ground, sneaked off with his 
brother wag amid the hootings of the spectators. 

This proneness to finery in dress, however, which Boswell 
and others of Goldsmith's contemporaries, who did not under- 
stand the secret plies of his character, attributed to vanity, 
arose, we are convinced, from a widely different motive. It 
was from a painful idea of his own personal defects, which had 
been cruelly stamped upon his mind in his boyhood by the 
sneers and jeers of his playmates, and had been ground deeper 
into it by rude speeches made to him in every step of his strug- 
gling career, until it had become a constant cause of awkward- 
ness and embarrassment. This he had experienced the more 
sensibly since his reputation had elevated him into polite 
society ; and he was constantly endeavoring by the aid of dress 
to acquire that personal acceptability, if we may use the 
phrase, which nature had denied him. If ever he betrayed a 
little self-complacency on first turning out in a new suit, it may 
perhaps have been because he felt as if he had achieved a tri- 
umph over his ugliness. 

There were circumstances too about the time of which we 
are treating which may have rendered Goldsmith more than 
usually attentive to his personal appearance. He had recently 
made the acquaintance of a most agreeable family from Devon- 
shire, which he met at the house of his friend, Sir Joshua Eey- 
nolds. It consisted of Mrs. Horneck, widow of Captain Kane 
Horneck ; two daughters, seventeen and nineteen years of age, 
and an* only son, Charles, the Captain in Lace, as his sisters 
playfully and somewhat proudly called him, he having lately 
entered the Guards. The daughters are described as uncom- 
monly beautiful, intelligent, sprightly, and agreeable. Cath- 
arine, the eldest, went among her friends by the name of 
Little Comedy, indicative, very probably, of her disposition. 
She was engaged to William Henry Bunbury, second son of a 
Suffolk baronet. The hand and heart of her sister Mary were 
yet unengaged, although she bore the by-name, among her 
friends of the Jessamy Bride. This family was prepared, by 
their intimacy with Eeynolds and his sister, to appreciate the 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 153 

merits of Goldsmith. The poet had always been a chosen 
friend of the eminent painter, and Miss Eeynolds, as we have 
shown, ever since she had heard his poem of ' ' The Traveller" 
read aloud, had ceased to consider him ugly. The Hornecks 
were equally capable of forgetting his person in admiring his 
works. On becoming acquainted with him, too, they were de- 
lighted with his guileless simplicity, his buoyant good-nature 
and his innate benevolence, and an enduring intimacy soon 
sprang up between them. For once poor Goldsmith had met 
with polite society with which he was perfectly at home, and 
by which he was fully appreciated ; for once he had met with 
lovely women, to whom his ugly features were not repulsive. 
A proof of the easy and playful terms on which he was with 
them remains in a whimsical epistle in verse, of which the fol- 
lowing was the occasion. A dinner was to be given to their 
family by a Dr. Baker, a friend of their mother's, at which 
Eeynolds and Angelica Kauffman were to be present. The 
young ladies were eager to have Goldsmith of the party, and 
their intimacy with Dr. Baker allowing them to take the 
liberty, they wrote a joint invitation to the poet at the last 
moment. It came too late, and drew from him the following 
reply; on the top of which was scrawled, "This is a poem! 
This is a copy of verses !" 



Your mandate I got, 
Yon may all go to pot; 
Had your senses been right, 
Youxl have sent before night- 
So tell Horneck and Nesbitt, 
And Baker and his bit, 
And Kauffman beside. 
And the Jessamy Bride, 
With the rest of the crew, 
The Rejmoldses too, 



Little Comedy's face, 
And the Captain in Lace — 
Tell each other to rue 
Your Devonshire crew, 
For sending so late 
To one of my state. 
But 'tis Reynolds's way 
From wisdom to stray, 
And Angelica's whim 
To befrolic like him ; 



But alas! your good worships, how could they be wiser, 
When both have been spoil'd in to-day's Advertiser? * 



* The following lines had appeared in that day's Advertiser, on the portrait of 
Sir Joshua by Angelica Kauffman: 

While fair Angelica, with matchless grace. 
Paints Conway's burly form and Stanhope's face; 
Our hearts to beauty willing homage pay, 
We praise, admire, and gaze our souls away. 
But when the likeness she hath done for thee, 
O Reynolds! with astonishment we see, 
Forced to submit, with all our pride we own, 
Such strength, such harmony excelled by none, 
\nd thou art rivalled by thyself alone. 



154 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

It has been intimated that the intimacy of poor Goldsmith 
with the Miss Hornecks, which began in so sprightly a vein, 
gradually assumed something of a more tender nature, and that 
he was not insensible to the fascinations of the younger sister. 
This may account for some of the phenomena which about 
this time appeared in his wardrobe and toilet. During the 
first year of his acquaintance with these lovely girls, the tell- 
tale book of his tailor, Mr. William Filby, displays entries of 
four or five full suits, beside separate articles of dress. 
Among the items we find a green half -trimmed frock and 
breeches, lined with silk; a queen's blue dress suit; a half- 
dress suit of ratteen, lined with satin ; a pair of silk stocking 
breeches, and another pair of a bloom color. Alas! poor 
Goldsmith ! how much of this silken finery was dictated, not 
by -vanity, but humble consciousness of thy defects ; how 
much of it was to atone for the uncouthness of thy person, 
and to win favor in the eyes of the Jessamy Bride ! 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

GOLDSMITH IN THE TEMPLE — JUDGE DAY AND GRATTAN— LABOR 
AND DISSIPATION— PUBLICATION OF THE ROMAN HISTORY- 
OPINIONS OF IT— HISTORY OF ANIMATED NATURE — TEMPLE 
ROOKERY — ANECDOTES OF A SPIDER. 

In the winter of 1768-69 Goldsmith occupied himself at his 
quarters in the Temple, slowly "building up" his Roman 
History. We have pleasant views of him in this learned and 
half -cloistered retreat of wits and lawyers and legal students, 
in the reminiscences of Judge Day of the Irish Bench, who in 
his advanced age delighted to recall the days of his youth, 
when he was a Templar, and to speak of the kindness with 
which he and his fellow-student, Grattan, were treated by the 
poet. "I was just arrived from college," said he, "full 
freighted with academic gleanings, and our author did not 
disdain to receive from me some opinions and hints toward his 
Greek and Roman histories. Beirig then a young man, I felt 
much flattered by the notice of so celebrated a person. He 
took great delight in the conversation of Grattan, whose 
brilliancy in the morning of life furnished full earnest of the 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 155 

unrivalled splendor which awaited his meridian ; and finding 
us dwelling together in Essex Court, near himself, where he 
frequently visited my immortal friend, his warm heart 
became naturally prepossessed toward the associate of one 
whom he so much admired." 

The judge goes on, in his reminiscences, to give a picture of 
Goldsmith's social habits, similar in style to those already 
furnished. He frequented much the Grecian Coffee-House, 
then the favorite resort of the Irish and Lancashire Templars. 
He delighted in collecting his friends around him at evening 
parties at his chambers, where he entertained them with a 
cordial and unostentatious hospitality. " Occasionally, " adds 
the judge, "he amused them with his flute, or with whist, 
neither of which he played well, particularly the latter, but, 
on losing his money, he never lost his temper. In a run of 
bad luck and worse play, he would fling his cards upon the 
floor and exclaim, Byefore George, I ought forever to re- 
nounce thee, fickle, faithless Fortune.' " 

The judge was aware at the time that all the learned labor 
of poor Goldsmith upon his Roman History was mere hack 
work to recruit his exhausted finances. "His purse replen- 
ished," adds he, "by labors of this kind, the season of relaxa- 
tion and pleasure took its turn, in attending the theatres, 
Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and other scenes of gayety and amuse- 
ment. Whenever his funds were dissipated — and they fled 
more rapidly from being the dupe of many artful persons, 
male and female, who practised upon his benevolence— he 
returned to his literary labors, and shut himself up from 
society to provide fresh matter for his bookseller, and fresh 
supplies for himself. " 

How completely had the young student discerned the charac- 
teristics of poor, genial, generous, drudging, holiday-loving 
Goldsmith ; toiling that he might play ; earning his bread by 
the sweat of his brains, and then throwing it out of the 
window. 

The Roman History was published in the middle of May, in 
two volumes of five hundred pages each. It was brought out 
without parade or pretension, and was announced as for the 
use of schools and colleges; but, though a work written for 
bread, not fame, such is its ease, perspicuity, good sense, and 
the delightful simplicity of its style, that it was well received 
by the critics, commanded a prompt and extensive sale, and 
has ever since remained in the hands of young and old. 



156 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Johnson, who, as we have before remarked, rarely praised or 
dispraised things by halves, broke forth in a warm eulogy of 
the author and the work, in a conversation with Boswell, to 
the great astonishment of the latter. "Whether we take 
Goldsmith," said he, "as a poet, as a comic writer, or as an 
historian, he stands in the first class." Boswell. — "An his- 
torian! My dear sir, you surely will not rank his compilation 
of the Eoman History with the works of other historians of 
this age." Johnson. — " Why, who are before him?" Boswell. 
— "Hume — Eobertson— Lord Lyttelton." Johnson (his antip- 
athy against the Scotch beginning, to rise). — "I have not read 
Hume; but doubtless Goldsmith's History is better than the 
verbiage of Eobertson, or the foppery of Dalrymple. " Boswell. 
— "Will you not admit the superiority of Eobertson, in whose 
history we find such penetration, such painting?" Johnson. — 
"Sir, you must consider how that penetration, and that paint- 
ing are employed. It is not history, it is imagination. He 
who describes what he never saw, draws from fancy. Eobert- 
son paints minds as Sir Joshua paints faces, in a history-piece ;• 
he imagines an heroic countenance. You must look upon 
Eobertson's work as romance, and try it by that standard. 
History it is not. Besides, sir, it is tne great excellence of a 
writer to put into his book as much as his book will hold. 
Goldsmith has done this in his history. Now Eobertson might 
have put twice as much in his book. Eobertson is like a man 
who has packed gold in wool ; the wool takes up more room 
than the gold. No, sir, I always thought Eobertson would be 
crushed with his own weight — would be buried under his own 
ornaments. Goldsmith tells you shortly all you want to know • 
Eobertson detains you a great deal too long. No man will read 
Eobertson's cumbrous detail a second time; but Goldsmith's, 
plain narrative will please again and again. I would say to \ 
Eobertson what an old tutor of a college said to one of his \ 
pupils, ' Eead over your compositions, and whenever you meet 
with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it 
out!' Goldsmith's abridgment is better than that of Lucius 
Floras or Eutropius ; and I will venture to say, that if you 
compare him with Vertot in the same places of the Eoman His- 
tory, you will find that he excels Vertot. Sir, he has the art 
of compiling, and of saying everything he has to say in a 
pleasing manner. He is now writing a Natural History, and 
will make it as entertaining as a Persian tale." 

The Natural History to which Johnson alluded was the 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 157 

"History Of Animated Nature," which Goldsmith Commenced 
in 1769, under an engagement with Grifiin, the bookseller, to 
complete it as soon as possible in eight volumes, each contain- 
ing upward of four hundred pages, in pica; a hundred guineas 
to be paid to the author on the delivery of each volume in 
manuscript. 

He was induced to engage in this work by the urgent solici- 
tations of the booksellers, who had been struck by the sterling 
merits and captivating style of an introduction which he wrote 
to Brookes's Natural History. It was Goldsmith's intention 
originally to make a translation. of Pliny, with a popular com- 
mentary; but the appearance of Buffon's work induced him to 
change his plan, and make use of that author for a guide and 

model. , cc^- : l 

Cumberland, speaking, of this work, observes: Distress 
drove Goldsmith upon undertakings neither congenial with his 
studies nor worthy of his talents. I remember him when, in 
his chambers in the Temple, he showed me the beginning of his 
' Animated Nature;' it was with a sigh, such as genius draws 
when hard necessity diverts it from its bent to drudge for 
bread, and talk of birds, and beasts, and creeping things, 
which Pidock's showman would have done as well. Poor fel- 
low, he hardly knows an ass from a mule, nor a turkey from a 
goose, but when he sees it on the table." 

Others of Goldsmith's friends entertained similar ideas with 
respect to his fitness for the task, and they were apt now and 
then to banter him on the subject, and to amuse themselves 
with his easy credulity. The custom among the natives of 
Otaheite of eating dogs being once mentioned in company, 
Goldsmith observed that a similar custom prevailed in China; 
that a dog-butcher is as common there as any other butcher; 
and that when he walks abroad all the dogs fall on him. John- 
son -" That is not owing to his killing dogs; sir, I remember 
a butcher at Lichfield, whom a dog that was in the house 
where I lived always attacked. It is the smell of carnage 
which provokes this, let the animals he has killed be what 
they may." Goldsmith.-" Yes, there is a general abhorrence 
in animals at the signs of massacre. If you put a tub full of 
blood into a stable, the horses are likely to go mad." Johnson 
—"I doubt that." Goldsmith.— "Nay, sir, it is a fact well 
authenticated." Thrale.-" You had better prove it before you 
put it into vour book on Natural History. You may do it in 
my stable 'if you will." Johnson.-" Nay, sir, I would not 



158 •- OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

have him prove it. If he is content to take his information 
from others, he may get through his book with little trouble, 
and without much endangering his reputation. But if he 
makes experiments for so comprehensive a book as his, there 
would be no end to them ; his erroneous assertions would fall 
then upon himself; and he might be blamed for not having 
made experiments as to every particular." 

Johnson's original prediction, however, with respect to this 
work, that Goldsmith would make it as entertaining as a Per- 
sian tale, was verified ; and though much of it was borrowed 
from BuffOn, and but little of it written from his own observa- 
tion; though it was by no means profound, and was charge- 
able with many errors, yet the charms of his style and the play 
of his happy disposition throughout have continued to render 
it far more popular and readable than many works on the sub- 
ject of much greater scope and science. Cumberland was mis- 
taken, however, in his notion of Goldsmith's ignorance and 
lack of observation as to the characteristics of animals. On 
the contrary, he was a minute and shrewd observer of them ; 
but he observed them with the eye of a poet and moralist as 
well as a naturalist. We quote two passages from his works 
illustrative of this fact, and we do so the more readily because 
they are in a manner a part of his history, and give us another 
peep into his private life in the Temple; of his mode of occupy- 
ing himself in his lonely and apparently idle moments, and of 
another class of acquaintances which he made there. 

Speaking in his " Animated Nature" of the habitudes of 
Rooks, " I have often amused myself," says he, "with observ- 
ing their plans of policy from my window in the Temple, that 
looks upon a grove, where they have made a colony in the 
midst of a city. At the commencement of spring the rookery, 
which, during the continuance of winter, seemed to have been 
deserted, or only guarded by about five or six, like old soldiers 
in a garrison, now begins to be once more frequented ; and in a 
short time, all the bustle and hurry of business will be fairly 
commenced." 

The other passage, which we take the liberty to quote at some 
length, is from an admirable paper in the Bee, and relates to 
the House Spider. 

" Of all the solitary insects I have ever remarked, the spider 
is the most sagacious, and its motions to me, who have atten- 
tively considered them, seem almost to exceed belief. ... I 
perceived, about four years ago, a large spider in one corner of 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 159 

my room making its web; and, though the maid frequently- 
levelled her broom against the labors of the little animal, I 
had the good fortune then to prevent its destruction, and 
I may say it more than paid me by the entertainment it 
afforded. 

"In three days the web was, with incredible diligence, com- 
pleted ; nor could I avoid thinking that the insect seemed to 
exult in its new abode. It frequently traversed it round, 
examined the strength of every part of it, retired into its hole, 
and came out very frequently. The first enemy, however, it 
had to encounter was another and a much larger spider, 
which, having no web of its own, and having probably ex- 
hausted all its stock in former labors of this kind, came to 
invade the property of its neighbor. Soon, then, a terrible 
encounter ensued, in which the invader seemed to have the 
victory, and the laborious spider was obliged to take refuge in 
its hole. Upon this I perceived the victor using every art to 
draw the enemy from its stronghold. He seemed to go off, 
but quickly returned ; and when he found all arts in vain, 
began to demolish the new web without mercy. This brought 
on another battle, and, contrary to my expectations, the 
laborious spider became conqueror, and fairly killed his an- 
tagonist. 

k ' Now, then, in peaceable possession of what was justly its 
own, it waited three days with the utmost patience, repairing 
the breaches of its web, and taking no sustenance that I could 
perceive. At last, however, a large blue fly fell into the snare, 
and struggled hard to get loose. The spider gave it leave to 
entangle itself as much as possible, but it seemed to be too 
strong for the cobweb. I must own I was greatly surprised 
when I saw the spider immediately sally out, and in less than 
a minute weave a new net round its captive, by which the 
motion of its wings was stopped; and when it was fairly 
hampered in this manner it was seized and dragged into the 
hole. 

" In this manner it lived, in a precarious state; and nature 
seemed to have fitted it for such a life, for upon a single fly it 
subsisted for more than a week. I once put a wasp into the 
net; but when the spider came out in order to seize it, as 
usual, upon perceiving what kind of an enemy it had to deal 
with, it instantly broke all the bands that held it fast, and 
contributed all that lay in its power to disengage so formidable 
mx antagonist. When the wasp was set at liberty, I expecte4 



±60 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

the spider would have set about repairing the breaches that 
were made in its net; but those, it seems, were irreparable: 
wherefore the cobweb was now entirely forsaken, and a new 
one begun, which was completed in the usual time. 

"I had now a mind to try how many cobwebs a single spider 
could furnish ; wherefore I destroyed this, and the insect set 
about another. "When I destroyed the other also, its whole 
stock seemed entirely exhausted, and it could spin no more. 
The arts it made use of to support itself, now deprived of its 
great means of subsistence, were indeed* surprising. I have 
seen it roll up its legs like a ball, and lie motionless for hours 
together, but cautiously watching all the time : when a fly 
happened to approach sufficiently near, it would dart out all 
at once, and often seize its prey. 

"Of this life, however, it soon began to grow weary, and 
resolved to invade the possession of some other spider, since it 
could not make a web of its own. It formed an attack upon a 
neighboring fortification with great vigor, and at first was as 
vigorously repulsed. Not daunted, however, with one defeat, 
in this manner it continued to lay siege to another's web for 
three days, and at length, having killed the defendant, actually 
took possession. When smaller flies happen to fall into the 
snare, the spider does not sally out at once, but very patiently 
waits till it is sure of them ; for, upon his immediately ap- 
proaching, the terror of his appearance might give the captive 
strength sufficient to get loose ; the manner, then, is to wait 
patiently, till, by ineffectual and impotent struggles, the cap- 
tive has wasted all its strength, and then he becomes a certain 
and easy conquest. 

"The insect I am now describing lived three years; every 
year it changed its skin and got a new set of legs. I have 
sometimes plucked off a leg, which grew again in two or three 
days. At first it dreaded my approach to its web, but at last 
it became so familiar as to take a fly out of my hand ; and, 
upon my touching any part of the web, would immediately 
leave its hole, prepared either for a defence or an attack," 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 161 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

HONORS AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY — LETTER TO HIS BROTHER 
MAURICE — FAMILY FORTUNES — JANE CONTARINE AND THE 
MINIATURE — PORTRAITS AND ENGRAVINGS — SCHOOL ASSOCIA- 
TIONS—JOHNSON AND GOLDSMITH IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 

The latter part of the year 1768 had been made memorable 
in the world of taste by the institution of the Royal Academy 
of Arts, under the patronage of the King, and the direction of 
forty of the most distinguished artists. Reynolds, who had 
been mainly instrumental in founding it, had been unani- 
mously elected president, and had thereupon received the 
honor of knighthood.* Johnson was so delighted with his 
friend's elevation, that he broke through a rule of total absti- 
nence with respect to wine, which he had maintained for 
several years, and drank bumpers on the occasion. Sir Joshua 
eagerly sought to associate his old and valued friends with 
him in his new honors, and it is supposed to be through his 
suggestions that, on the first establishment of professorships, 
which took place in December, 1769, Johnson was nominated 
to that of Ancient Literature, and Goldsmith to that of His- 
tory. They were mere honorary titles, without emolument, 
but gave distinction, from the noble institution to which they 
appertained. They also gave the possessors honorable places 
at the annual banquet, at which were assembled many of the 
most distinguished persons of rank and talent, all proud to be 
classed among the patrons of the arts. 

The following letter of Goldsmith to his brother alludes to 
the foregoing appointment, and to a small legacy bequeathed 
to him by his uncle Contarine. 

" To Mr. Maurice Goldsmith, at James Lawder's, Esq., at Kil- 
more, near Carrick-on- Shannon. 

"January, 1770. 

"Dear Brother: I should have answered your letter sooner, 
but, in truth, I am not fond of thinking of the necessities of 

* We must apologize for the anachronism we have permitted ourselves in the 
course of this memoir, in speaking of Reynolds as Sir Joshua, when treating of 
circumstances which occurred prior to his being dubbed^ but it is so customary to 
speak of him by that title, that we found it difficult to dispense with it. 



169 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

those I love, when it is so very little in my power to help them. 
I am sorry to find you are every way unprovided for; and 
what adds to my uneasiness is, that I have received a letter 
from my sister Johnson, by which I learn that she is pretty 
much in the same circumstances. As to myself, I believe I think 
I could get both you and my poor brother-in-law something like 
that which you desire, but I am determined never to ask for 
little things, nor exhaust any little interest I may have, until 
I can serve you, him, and myself more effectually. As yet, no 
opportunity has offered ; but I believe you are pretty well con- 
vinced that I will not be remiss when it arrives. 

" The king has lately been pleased to make me Professor of 
Ancient History in the Eoyal Academy of Painting which he 
has just established, but there is no salary annexed; and I took 
it rather as a compliment to the institution than any benefit 
to myself. Honors to one in my situation are something like 
ruffles to one that wants a shirt. 

" You tell me that there are fourteen or fifteen pounds left 
me in the hands of my cousin Lawder, and you ask me what 
I would have done with them. My dear brother, I would by 
no means give any directions to my dear worthy relations at 
Kilmore how to dispose of money which is, properly speaking, 
more theirs than mine. All that I can say is, that I entirely, 
and this letter will serve to witness, give up any right and title 
to it ; and I am sure they will dispose of it to the best advan- 
tage. To them I entirely leave it ; whether they or you may 
think the whole necessary to fit you out, or whether our poor 
sister Johnson may not want the half, I leave entirely to their 
and your discretion. The kindness of that good couple to our 
shattered family demands our sincerest gratitude ; and, though 
they have almost forgotten me, yet, if good things at last ar- 
rive, I hope one day to return and increase their good-humor 
by adding to my own. 

"I have sent my cousin Jenny a miniature picture of my- 
self, as I believe it is the most acceptable present I can offer. 
I have ordered it to be left for her at George Faulkner's, folded 
in a letter. The face, you well know, is ugly enough, but it is 
finely painted. I will shortly also send my friends over the 
Shannon some mezzotinto prints of myself, and some more of 
my friends here, such as Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, and Col- 
man. I believe I have written a hundred letters to different 
friends in your country, and never received an answer to any 
of them. I do not know how to account for this, or why they 



OtiVEU GOLDSMITH. 163 

ate unwilling to keep up for me those regards which I must 
ever retain for them. 

"If, then, you have a mind to oblige me, you will write 
often, whether I answer you or not. Let me particularly have 
the news of our family and old acquaintances. For instance, 
you may begin by telling me about the family where you re- 
side, how they spend their time, and whether they ever make 
mention of me. Tell me about my mother, my brother Hod- 
son and his son, my brother Harry's son and daughter, my 
sister Johnson, the family of Ballyoughter, what is become of 
them, where they live, and how they do. You talked of being 
my only brother: I don't understand you. Where is Charles? 
A sheet of paper occasionally filled with the news of this kind 
would make me very happy, and would keep you nearer my 
mind. As it is, my dear brother, believe me to be 
"Yours, most affectionately, 

"Oliver Goldsmith." 

By this letter we find the Goldsmiths the same shifting, shift- 
less race as formerly; a " shattered family," scrambling on each 
other's back as soon as any rise above the surface. Maurice 
is " every way unprovided for;" living upon cousin Jane and 
her husband ; and, perhaps, amusing himself by hunting otter 
in the river Inny. Sister Johnson and her husband are as 
poorly off as Maurice, with, perhaps, no one at hand to quar- 
ter themselves upon; a^ to the rest, "what is become of them: 
where do they live ; how do they do ; what is become of 
Charles?" What forlorn, haphazard life is implied by these 
questions! Can we wonder that, with all the love for his 
native place, which is shown throughout Goldsmith's writ- 
ings, he had not the heart to return there? Yet his affections 
are still there. He wishes to know whether the Lawders 
(which means his cousin Jane, his early Valentine) ever make 
mention of him ; he sends Jane his miniature ; he believes ' ' it 
is the most acceptable present he can offer;" he evidently, 
therefore, does not believe she has almost forgotten him, 
although he intimates that he does: in his memory she is 
still Jane Contarine, as he last saw her, when he accompanied 
her harpsichord with his flute. Absence, like death, sets a 
seal on the image of those we have loved ; we cannot realize 
the intervening changes which time may have effected. 

As to the rest of Goldsmith's relatives, .he abandons his 
legacy of fifteen pounds, to be shared among them. It is all he 



164 OLiVEU GOLDSMITH 

has to give. His heedless improvidence is eating up the pay 
of the booksellers in advance. With all his literary success, 
he has neither money nor influence ; but he has empty fame, 
and he is ready to participate with them ; he is honorary pro- 
fessor, without pay; his portrait is to be engraved in mezzo- 
tint, in company with those of his friends, Burke, Reynolds, 
Johnson, Colman, and others, and he will send prints of them 
to his friends over the Channel, though they may not have a 
house to hang them up in. What a motley letter ! How indi- 
cative of the motley character of the writer ! By the by, the 
publication of a splendid mezzotinto engraving of his likeness 
by Reynolds, was a great matter of glorification to Gold- 
smith, especially as it appeared in such illustrious company. 
As he was one day walking the streets in a state of high ela- 
tion, from having just seen it figuring in the print-shop win- 
dows, he met a young gentleman with a newly married wife 
hanging on his arm, Avhom he immediately recognized for 
Master Bishop, one of the boys he had petted and treated with 
sweetmeats when a humble usher at Milner's school. The 
kindly feelings of old times revived, and he accosted him with 
cordial familiarity, though the youth may have found some 
difficulty in recognizing in the personage, arrayed, perhaps, in 
garments of Tyrian dye, the dingy pedagogue of the Milners. 
"Come, my boy," cried Goldsmith, as if still speaking to a 
schoolboy, ' ' Come, Sam, I am delighted to see you. I must 
treat you to something — what shall it be? Will you have some 
apples?" glancing at an old woman's stall; then, recollecting 
the print-shop window : "Sam," said he, "have you seen my 
picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds? Have you seen it, Sam? 
Have you got an engraving?" Bishop was caught; he equivo- 
cated ; he had not yet bought it ; but he was furnishing his 
house, and had fixed upon the place where it was to be hung. 
"Ah, Sam!" rejoined Goldsmith reproachfully, "if your pic- 
ture had been published, I should not have waited an hour 
without having it." 

After all, it was honest pride, not vanity, in Goldsmith, that 
was gratified at seeing his portrait deemed worthy of being 
perpetuated by the classic pencil of Reynolds, and ' - hung up 
in history" beside that of his revered friend, Johnson. Even 
the great moralist himself was not insensible to a feeling of 
this kind. Walking one day with Goldsmith, in Westminster 
Abbey, among the tombs of monarchs, warriors, and states- 
men, they came to the sculptured mementos of literary wor- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 165 

thies in poets' corner. Casting his eye round upon these me- 
morials of genius, Johnson muttered in a low tone to his 
companion, 

Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis. 

Goldsmith treasured up the intimated hope, and shortly after- 
ward, as they were passing by Temple bar, where the heads of 
Jacobite rebels, executed for treason, were mouldering aloft on 
spikes, pointed up to the grizzly mementos, and echoed the in- 
timation, 

Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis. 



CHAPTEE XXVIII. 

PUBLICATION OF THE "DESERTED VILLAGE" — NOTICES AND 
ILLUSTRATIONS OF IT. 

Several years had now elapsed since the publication of 
"The Traveller," and much wonder was expressed that the 
great success of that poem had not excited the author to 
further poetic attempts. On being questioned at the annual 
dinner of the Eoyal Academy by the Earl of Lisburn, why he 
neglected the muses to compile histories and write novels, 
" My Lord," replied he, "by courting the muses I shall starve, 
but by my other labors I eat, drink, have good clothes, and 
can enjoy the luxuries of life." So, also, on being asked by a 
poor writer what was the most profitable mode of exercising 
the pen, "My dear fellow," replied he, good-hum oredly, "pay 
no regard to the draggle-tailed muses; for my part I have 
found productions in prose much more sought after and better 
paid for." 

Still, however, as we have heretofore shown, he found sweet 
moments of dalliance to steal away from his prosaic toils, and ' 
court the muse among the green lanes and hedge-rows in the 
rural environs of London, and on the 26th of May, 1770, he 
was enabled to bring his "Deserted Village" before the public. 

The popularity of "The Traveller" had prepared the way 
for this poem, and its sale was instantaneous and immense. 
The first edition was immediately exhausted ; in a few days a , 
second was issued; in a few days more a third, and by the 



166 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

16 th of August the fifth edition was hurried through the press. 
As is the case with popular writers, he had become his own 
rival, and critics were inclined to give the preference to his 
first poem ; but with the public at large we believe the * ' De- 
serted Village" has ever been the greatest favorite. Previous 
to its publication the bookseller gave him in advance a note 
for the price agreed upon, one hundred guineas. As the latter 
was returning home he met a friend to whom he mentioned 
the circumstance, and who, apparently judging of poetry by 
quantity rather than quality, observed that it was, a great sum 
for so small a poem. "In truth," said Goldsmith, "I think so 
too ; it is much more than the honest man can afford or the 
piece is worth. I have not been easy since I received it. " In 
fact, he actually returned the note to the bookseller, and left 
it to him to graduate the payment according to the success of 
the work. The bookseller, as may well be supposed, soon re- 
paid him in full with many acknowledgments of his disinter- 
estedness. This anecdote has been called in question, we 
know not on what grounds; we see nothing in it incompatible 
with the character of Goldsmith, who was very impulsive, 
and prone to acts of inconsiderate generosity. 

As we do not pretend in this summary memoir to go into a 
criticism or analysis of any of Goldsmith's writings, we shall 
not dwell upon the peculiar merits of this poem ; we cannot 
help noticing, however, how truly it is a mirror of the author's 
heart, and of all the fond pictures of early friends and early life 
forever present there. It seems to us as if the very last ac- 
counts received from home, of his "shattered family," and the 
desolation that seemed to have settled upon the haunts of his 
chilhood, had cut to the roots one feebly cherished hope, and 
produced the following exquisitely tender and mournful lines : 

" In all my wand'rings round this world of care, 
In all my griefs — and God has giv'n my share — 
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown, 
Amid these humble bowers to lay me down; 
To husband out life's taper at the close, 
And keep the flame from wasting by repose; 
I still had hopes, for pride attends us still, 
Amid the swains to show my book-learn'd skill, 
Around m3 r fire an ev'ning group to draw, 
And tell of all I felt and all I saw ; 
And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, 
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew; 
I still had hopes, my long vexations past, 
JJere fco return— an# die at home at last," 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 167 

How touchingly expressive are the succeeding lines, wrung 
from a heart which all the trials and temptations and buffet- 
ings of the world could not render worldly; which, amid a 
thousand follies and errors of the head, still retained its child- 
like innocence ; and which, doomed to struggle on to the last 
amid the din and turmoil of the metropolis, has ever been 
cheating itself with a dream of rural quiet and seclusion: 

" Oh bless'd retirement! friend to life's decline, 
Retreats from care, that never must be mine, 
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these, 
A youth of labor with an age of ease ; 
Who quits a world where strong temptations try, 
And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly! 
For him no wretches, born to work and weep, 
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep; 
Nor surly porter stands, in guilty state, 
To spurn imploring famine from the gate; 
But on he moves to meet his latter end, 
Angels around befriending virtue's friend; 
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay, 
While resignation gently slopes the way; 
And all his prospects brightening to the last, 
His heaven commences ere the world be past." 



NOTE. 

The following article, which appeared in a London periodi- 
cal, shows the effect of Goldsmith's poem in renovating the 
fortunes of Lissoy. 

"About three miles from Bally mahon, a very central town 
in the sister kingdom, is the mansion and village of Auburn, 
so called by their present possessor, Captain Hogan. Through 
the taste and improvement of this gentleman, it is now a beau- 
tiful spot, although fifteen years since it presented a very bare 
and unpoetical aspect. This, however, was owing to a cause 
which serves strongly to corroborate the assertion that Gold- 
smith had this scene in view when he wrote his poem of ' The 
Deserted Village.' The then possessor, General Napier, turned 
all his tenants out of their farms that he might inclose them in 
his own private domain. Littleton, the mansion of the gen- 
eral, stands not far off, a complete emblem of the desolating 
spirit lamented by the poet, dilapidated and converted into a 
barrack, 

" The chief object of attraction is Lissoy, once the parsonage 
foouse of Henry Goldsmith, that brother to whom the poet 



4i 'I , 

168 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

dedicated his ' Traveller,' and who is represented as the village 
pastor, 

' Passing rich with forty pounds a year. ' 

"When I was in the country, the lower chambers were in- 
habited by pigs and sheep, and the drawing-rooms by goats. 
Captain Hogan, however, has, I believe, got it since into his 
possession, and has, of course, improved its condition. 

"Though at first strongly inclined to dispute the identity of 
Auburn, Lissoy House overcame my scruples. As I clambered 
over the rotten gate, and crossed the grass-grown lawn or 
court, the tide of association became too strong for casuistry ; 
here the poet dwelt and wrote, and here his thoughts fondly 
recurred when composing his ' Traveller ' in a foreign land. 
Yonder was the decent church, that literally ' topped the neigh- 
boring hill. ' Before me lay the little hill of Knockrue, on which 
he declares, in one of his letters, he had rather sit with a book 
in hand than mingle in the proudest assemblies. And, above 
all, startlingly true, beneath my feet was 

4 Yonder copse, where once the garden smiled. 
And still where many a garden-flower grows wild. ' 

"A painting from the life could not be more exact. 'The 
stubborn currant-bush ' lifts its head above the rank grass, and 
the proud hollyhock flaunts where its sisters of the flower-knot 
are no more. 

* ' In the middle of the village stands the old ' hawthorn-tree, ' 
built up with masonry to distinguish and preserve it ; it is old 
and stunted, and suffers much from the depredations of post- 
chaise travellers, who generally stop to procure a twig. Op- 
posite to it is the village alehouse, over the door of which 
swings ' The Three Jolly Pigeons. ' Within everything is ar- 
ranged according to the letter : 

' The whitewashed wall, the nicely-sanded floor, 
The varnishM clock that click'd behind the door: 
The chest, contrived a double debt to pay, 
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day; 
The pictures placed for ornament and use, 
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose.' 

"Captain Hogan, I have heard, found great difficulty in ob- 
taining ' the twelve good rules,' but at length purchased them 
at some London bookstall to adorn the whitewashed parlor of 
'The Three Jolly Pigeons.' However laudable this may be, 
nothing shook my faith in the reality of Auburn so much a$ 



oiAvm GOLDsMtm. leg 

this exactness, which had the disagreeable air of being got up 
for the occasion. The last object of pilgrimage is the quondam 
habitation of the schoolmaster, 

' There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule.' 

It is surrounded with fragrant proofs of identity in ' 

' The blossom'd furze, unprofitably gay. 1 

"There is to be seen the chair of the poet, which fell into the 
hands of its present possessors at the wreck of the parsonage- 
house ; they have frequently refused large offers of purchase ; 
but more, I dare say, for the sake of drawing contributions 
from the curious than from any reverence for the bard. The 
chair is of oak, with back and seat of cane, which precluded 
all hopes of a secret drawer, like that lately discovered in 
Gay's. There is no fear of its being worn out by the devout 
earnestness of sitters — as the cocks and hens have usurped un- 
disputed possession of it, and protest most clamorously against 
all attempts to get it cleansed or to seat one's self. 

"The controversy concerning the identity of this Auburn 
was formerly a standing theme of discussion among the 
learned of the neighborhood ; but, since the pros and cons 
have been all ascertained, the argument has died away. Its 
abettors plead the singular agreement between the local his- 
tory of the place and the Auburn of the poem, and the exact- 
ness with which the scenery of the one answers to the descrip- 
tion of the other. To this is opposed the mention of *the night- 
ingale, 

'And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made;' 

there being no such bird in the island. The objection is 
slighted, on the other hand, by considering the passage as a 
mere poetical license. ' Besides, ' say they, 'the robin is the Irish 
nightingale.' x^nd if it be hinted how unlikely it was that 
Goldsmith should have laid the scene in a place from which 
he was and had been so long absent, the rejoinder is always, 
'Pray, sir, was Milton in hell when he built Pandemonium? ' 

"The line is naturally drawn between; tnere can be no 
doubt that the poet intended England by 

' The land to hast'ning ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates»and men decay." 

But it is very natural to suppose that, at the same time, his 
imagination had in view the scenes of his youth, which give 
such strong features of resemblance to the picture." 



170 oLivm gold skim. 

Best, an Irish clergyman, told Davis, the traveller in Amer- 
ica, that the hawthorn-bush mentioned in the poem was still 
remarkably large. " I was riding once," said he, "with Brady, 
titular Bishop of Ardagh, when he observed to me, ■ Ma f oy, 
Best, this huge overgrown bush is mightily in the way. I will 
order it to be cut down.' — 'What, sir ! ' replied I, ' cut down the 
bush that supplies so beautiful an image in " The Deserted Vil- 
lage"? '— ' Ma foy ! ' exclaimed the bishop, ' is that the hawthorn- 
bush? Then let it be sacred from the edge of the axe, and evil 
be to him that should cut off a branch.' " — The hawthorn-bush, 
however, has long since been cut up, root and branch, in fur- 
nishing relics to literary pilgrims. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE POET AMONG THE LADIES— DESCRIPTION OF HIS PERSON AND 
MANNERS — EXPEDITION TO PARIS WITH THE HORNECK FAMILY 
— THE TRAVELLER OF TWENTY AND THE TRAVELLER OF FORTY 
— HICKEY, THE SPECIAL ATTORNEY— AN UNLUCKY EXPLOIT. 

The "Deserted Village" had shed an additional poetic grace 
round the homely person of the author ; he was becoming more 
and more acceptable in ladies' eyes, and finding himself mOre 
and more at ease in their society ; at least in the society of 
those whom he met in the Reynolds circle, among whom he 
particularly affected the beautiful family of the Hornecks. 

But let us see what were really the looks and manners of 
Goldsmith about this time, and what right he had to aspire to 
ladies' smiles ; and in so doing let us not take the sketches of. 
Boswell and his compeers, who had a propensity to represent 
him in caricature ; but let us take the apparently truthful and 
discriminating picture of him as he appeared to Judge Day, 
when the latter was a student in the Temple. 

r 'In person," says the judge, " he was short; about five feet 
five or six inches ; strong, but not heavy in make ; rather fair 
in complexion, with brown hair ; such, at least, as could be dis- 
tinguished from his wig. His features were plain, but not re- 
pulsive—certainly not so when lighted up by conversation. 
His manners were simple, natural, and perhaps on the whole, 
we mav sav, not polished ; at least without the refinement and 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 171 

good-breeding which the exquisite polish of his compositions 
would lead us to expect. He was always cheerful and ani- 
mated, often, indeed, boisterous in his mirth; entered with 
spirit into convivial society ; contributed largely to its enjoy- 
ments by solidity of information, and the naivete and origi- 
nality of his character; talked often without premeditation, 
and laughed loudly without restraint." 

- This, it will be recollected, represents him as he appeared to 
a young Templar, who probably saw him only in Temple coffee- 
houses, at students' quarters, or at the jovial supper parties 
given at the poet's own chambers; here, of course, his mind 
was in its rough dress; his laugh may have been loud and his 
mirth boisterous ; but we trust all these matters became soft- 
ened and modified when he found himself in polite drawing- 
rooms and in female society. 

But what say the ladies themselves of him ? And here, fortu- 
nately, we have another sketch of him, as he appeared at the 
time to one of the Horneck circle ; in fact, we believe, to the 
Jessamy Bride herself. After admitting, apparently with 
some reluctance, that " he was a very plain man," she goes on 
to say, ' ' but had he been much more so, it was impossible not 
to love and respect his goodness of heart, which broke out on 
every occasion. His benevolence was unquestionable, and his 
countenance bore every trace of it : no one that knew him inti- 
mately could avoid admiring and loving his good qualities." 
When to all this we add the idea of intellectual delicacy and 
refinement associated with him by his poetry and the newly 
plucked bays that were flourishing round his brow, we can- 
not be surprised that fine and fashionable ladies should be 
proud of his attentions, and that even a young beauty should 
not be altogether displeased with the thoughts of having a 
man of his genius in her chains. 

We are led to indulge some notions of the kind from finding 
him in the month of July, but a few weeks after the publica- 
tion of the "Deserted Village," setting off on a six weeks' ex- 
cursion to Paris, in company with Mrs. Horneck and her two 
beautiful daughters. A day or two before his departure, we 
find another new gala suit charged to him on the books of Mr. 
William Filby. Were the bright eyes of the Jessamy Bride 
responsible for this additional extravagance of wardrobe? 
Goldsmith had recently been editing the works of Parnell; 
had he taken courage from the example of Edwin in the fairy 

tales?— 



172 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

" Yet spite of all that nature did 
To make bis uncouth form forbid, 

This creature dared to love. 
He felt the force of Edith's eyes, 
Nor wanted hope to gain the prize 
Could ladies look ivithin " 

All this we throw out as mere hints and surmises, leaving it 
to our readers to draw their own conclusions. It will be 
found, however, that the poet was subjected to shrewd banter- 
ing among his contemporaries about the beautiful Mary Hor- 
neck, and that he was extremely sensitive on the subject. 

It was in the month of June that he set out for Paris with 
his fair companions, and the following letter was written by 
him to Sir Joshua Reynolds, soon after the party landed at 
Calais: 

"My dear Friend-: We had a very quick passage from 
Dover to Calais, which we performed in three hours and 
twenty minutes, all of us extremely sea-sick, which must 
necessarily have happened, as my machine to prevent sea- 
sickness was not completed. We were glad to leave Dover, 
because we hated to be imposed upon : so were in high spirits 
at coming to Calais, where we were told that a little money 
would go a great way. 

"Upon landing, with two little trunks, which was all we 
carried with us, we were surprised to see fourteen or fifteen 
fellows all running down to the ship to lay their hands upon 
them; four got imder each trunk, the rest surrounded and 
held the hasps; and in this manner our little baggage was 
conducted, with a kind of funeral solemnity, till it was safely 
lodged at the custom-house. We were well enough pleased 
with the people's civility till they came to be paid; every crea- 
ture that had the happiness of but touching our trunks with 
their finger expected sixpence; and they had so pretty and 
civil a manner of demanding it, that there was no refusing 
them. 

" When we had done with the porters, we had next to speak 
with the custom-house officers, who had their pretty civil 
way too. We were directed to the Hotel d'Angleterre, where 
a valet-de-place came to offer his service, and spoke to me ten 
minutes before I once found out that he was speaking English. 
We had no occasion for his services, so we gave him a little 
money because he spoke English, and because he wanted it. I 
cannot help mentioning another circumstance: I bought a new 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 173 

ribbon for my wig at Canterbury, and the barber at Calais 
broke it in order to gain sixpence by buying me a new one. " 

/ An incident which occurred in the course of this tour has 
been tortured by that literary magpie, Boswell, into a proof 
of Goldsmith's absurd jealousy of any admiration shown to 
others in his presence. While stopping at a hotel in Lisle, 
they were drawn to the windows by a military parade in front. 
The extreme beauty of the Miss Hornecks immediately at- 
tracted the attention of the officers, who broke forth with en- 
thusiastic speeches and compliments intended for their ears. 
Goldsmith was amused for a while, but at length affected im- 
patience at this exclusive admiration of his beautiful compan- 
ions, and exclaimed, with mock severity of aspect, "Elsewhere 
I also would have my admirers. " 

It is difficult to conceive the obtuseness of intellect necessary 
to misconstrue so obvious a piece of mock petulance and dry 
humor into an instance of mortified vanity and jealous self- 
conceit. 

Goldsmith jealous of the admiration of a group of gay offi- 
cers for the charms of two beautiful young women ! This even 
out-Boswells Boswell; yet this is but one of several similar 
absurdities, evidently misconceptions of Goldsmith's peculiar 
vein of humor, by which the charge of envious jealousy has 
been attempted to be fixed upon him. In the present instance 
it was contradicted by one of the ladies herself, who was an- 
noyed that it had been advanced against him. "I am sure," 
said she, "from the peculiar manner of his humor, and as- 
sumed frown of countenance, ™hat was often uttered in jest 
was mistaken, by those who did not know him, for earnest." 
No one was more prone to err on this point than Boswell. He 
had a tolerable perception of wit, but none of humor. 

The foUowing letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds was subse- 
quently written : 

" To Sir' Joshua Reynolds. 

" Paris, July 29 (1770). 

" My dear Friend: I began a long letter to you from Lisle, 
giving a description of all that we had done and seen, but^ 
finding it very dull, and knowing that you would show it 
again, I threw it aside and it was lost. You see by the top of 
this letter that we are at Paris, and (as I have often heard you 



174 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 






say) we have brought our own amusement with us, for the 
ladies do not seem to be very fond of what we have yet seen. 

"With regard to myself, I find that travelling at twenty and 
forty are very different things. I set out with all my con- 
firmed habits about me, and can find nothing on the Continent 
so good as when I formerly left it. One of our chief amuse- 
ments here is scolding at everything we meet with, and prais- 
ing everything and every person we left at home. You may 
judge, therefore, whether your name is not frequently ban- 1 
died at table among us. To tell you the truth, I never thought ' 
I could regret your absence so much as our various mortifica- 
tions on the road have taught me to do. I could tell you of 
disasters and adventures without number; of our lying in 
barns, and of my being half poisoned with a dish of green peas ; 
of our quarrelling with postilions, and being cheated by our 
landladies; but I reserve all this for a happy hour which I 
expect to share with you upon my return. 

"I have little to tell you more but that we are at present all 
well, and expect returning when we have stayed out one 
month, which I do not care if it were over this very day. I 
long to hear from you all, how you yourself do, how Johnson, 
Burke, Dyer, Chamier, Colman, and every one of the club do. 
I wish I could send you some amusement in this letter, but I 
protest I am so stupefied by the air of this country (for I am 
sure it cannot be natural) that I have not a word to say. I 
have been thinking of the plot of a comedy, which shall be 
entitled A Journey to Paris, in which a family shall be intro- 
duced with a full intention of going to France to save money. 
You know there is not a place in the world more promising 
for that purpose. As for the meat of this country, I can 
- scarce eat it ; and, though we pay two good shillings a head 
for our dinner, I found it all so tough that I have spent less 
time with my knife than my picktooth. I said this as a good 
thing at the table, but it was not understood. I believe it to 
be a good thing. 

" As for our intended journey to Devonshire, I find it out of 
my power to perform it; for, as soon as I arrive at Dover, 
I intend to let the ladies go on, and I will take a country 
lodging somewhere near that place in order to do some busi- 
ness. I have so outrun the constable that I must mortify a 
little to bring it up again. For God's sake, the night you re- 
ceive this, take your pen in your hand and tell me something 
about yourself and myself, if you know anvthing that has 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. j 75 

happened. About Miss Reynolds, about Mr. Bickerstaff, my 
nephew, or anybody that you regard. I beg you will send to 
Griffin the bookseller to know if there be any letters left for 
me, and be so good as to send them to me at Paris. They may 
perhaps be left for me at the Porter's Lodge, opposite the 
pump in Temple Lane. The same messenger will do. I ex- 
pect one from Lord Clare, from Ireland. As for the others, I 
am not much uneasy about. 

" Is there anything I can do for you at Paris? I wish you 
would tell me. The whole of my own purchases here is one 
silk coat, which I have put on, and which makes me look like 
a fool. But no more of that. I find that Colman has gained 
his lawsuit. I am glad of it. I suppose you often meet. I 
will soon be among you, better pleased with my situation at 
home than I ever was before. And yet I must say, that if 
anything could make France pleasant, the very good women 
with whom I am at present would certainly do it. I could say 
more about that, but I intend showing them the letter before I 
send it away. What signifies teasing you longer with moral 
observations, when the business of my writing is over? I have 
one thing only more to say, and of that I think every hour in 
the day, namely that I am your most sincere and most af- 
fectionate friend, 

" Oliver Goldsmith. 

" Direct to me at the Hotel de Danemarc, > 
Rue Jacob, Fauxbourg St. Germains." ) 

A word of comment on this letter: 

Travelling is, indeed, a very different thing with Goldsmith 
the poor student at twenty, and Goldsmith the poet and pro- 
fessor at forty. At twenty, though obliged to trudge on foot 
from town to town, and country to country, paying for a supper 
and a bed by a tune on the flute, everything pleased, every- 
thing was good ; a truckle bed in a garret was a couch of down, 
and the homely fare of the peasant a feast fit for an epicure. 
Now, at forty, when he posts through the country in a carriage, 
with fair ladies by his side, everything goes wrong: he has to 
quarrel with postilions, he is cheated by landladies, the hotels 
are barns, the meat is too tough to be eaten, and he is half 
poisoned by green peas ! A line in his letter explains the secret : 
"the ladies do not seem to be very fond of what we have yet 
seen." "One of our chief amusements is scolding at every, 
thing we meet with, and praising everything and every person 



1<*Q OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

we have left at home !" the true English travelling amusement. 
Poor Goldsmith! he has "all his confirmed habits about him;" 
that is to say, he has recently risen into high life, and acquired 
high-bred notions ; he must be fastidious like his fellow-travel- 
lers ; he dare not be pleased with what pleased the vulgar 
tastes of his youth. He is unconsciously illustrating the trait 
so humorously satirized by him in Ned Tibbs, the shabby 
beau, who can find "no such dressing as he had at Lord 
Crump's or Lady Crimp's;" whose very senses have grown 
genteel, and who no longer "smacks at wretched wine or 
praises detestable custard." A lurking thorn, too, is worrying 
him throughout this tour; he has "outrun the constable;" 
that is to say, his expenses have outrun his means, and he 
will have to make up for this butterfly flight by toiling like a 
grub on his return. 

Another circumstance contributes to mar the pleasure he 
had promised himself in this excursion. At Paris the party is 
unexpectedly joined by a Mr. Hickey , a bustling attorney, 
who is well acquainted with that metropolis and its environs, 
and insists on playing the cicerone on all occasions. He and 
Goldsmith do not relish eac\h other, and they have several 
petty altercations. The lawyer is too much a man of business 
and method for the careless poet, and is disposed to manage 
everything. He has perceived Goldsmith's whimsical pecu- 
liarities without properly appreciating his merits, and is prone 
to indulge in broad bantering and raillery at his expense, par- 
ticularly irksome if indulged in presence of the ladies. He 
makes himself merry on his return to England, by giving the 
following anecdote as illustrative of Goldsmith's vanity: 

"Being with a party at Versailles, viewing the waterworks, 
a question arose among the gentlemen present, whether the 
distance from whence they stood to one of the little islands 
was within the compass of a leap. Goldsmith maintained the 
affirmative; but, being bantered on the subject, and remem- 
bering his former prowess as a youth, attempted the leap, but, 
falling short, descended into the water, to the great amuse- 
ment of the company." 

Was the Jessamy Bride a witness of this unlucky exploit? 

This same Hickey is the one of whom Goldsmith, some time 
subsequently, gave a good-humored sketch, in his poem of 
"TheEetaliation." 

" Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt, pleasant creature, 
And slander itself must allow him good nature j 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 177 

He cherish'd his friend, and he relish'd a bumper, 

Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper. 

Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser; 

I answer No, no, for he always was wiser; 

Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat, 

His very worst foe can't accuse him of that; 

Perhaps he confided in men as they go, 

And so was too foolishly honest? Ah, no ! 

Then what was his failing? Come, tell it, and burn ye- 

He was, could he help it? a special attorney." 

One of the few remarks extant made by Goldsmith during 
his tour is the following, of whimsical import, in his "Ani- 
mated Nature." 

''In going through the towns of France, some time since, I 
could not help observing how much plainer their parrots spoke 
than ours, and how very distinctly I understood their parrots 
speak French, when I could not understand our own, though 
they spoke my native language. I at first ascribed it to the 
different qualities of the two languages, and was for entering 
into an elaborate discussion on the vowels and consonants; but 
a friend that was with me solved the difficulty at once, by as- 
suring me that the French women scarce did anything else the 
whole day than sit and instruct their feathered pupils; and 
that the birds were thus distinct in their lessons in «omsequence 
of continual schooling." 

His tour does not seem to have left in his memory the 
most fragrant recollections ; for, being asked, after his return, 
whether travelling on the Continent repaid "an Englishman 
for the privations and annoyances attendant on it," he replied, 
' ' I recommend it by all means to the sick if they are without 
the sense of smelling, and to the poor if they are without the 
sense of feeling ; and to both if they can discharge from their 
minds all idea of what in England we term comfort." 

It is needless to say that the universal improvement in the 
art of living on the Continent has at the present day taken 
away the force of Goldsmith's reply, though even at the time 
it was more humorous than correct, 



3/7£5 ujjxyjzM ituLuusMiin. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

DEATH OF GOLDSMITH'S MOTHER — BIOGRAPHY OP PARNELL— 
AGREEMENT WITH DAVIES FOR THE HISTORY OF ROME— LIFE 
)F BOLINGBROKE— THE HAUNCH OF VENISON. 

On his return to England, Goldsmith received the melan- 
choly tidings of the death of his mother. Notwithstanding 
the fame as an author to which he had attained, she seems to 
have been disappointed in her early expectations from him. 
Like others of his family, she had been more vexed by his 
early follies than pleased by his proofs of genius ; and in sub- 
sequent years, when he had risen to fame and to intercourse 
with the great, had been annoyed at the ignorance of the 
world and want of management, which prevented him from 
pushing his fortune. He had always, however, been an affec- 
tionate son, and in the latter years of her life, when she had 
become blind, contributed from his precarious resources to pre- 
vent her from feeling want. 

He now resumed the labors of the pen, which his recent ex- 
cursion to Paris rendered doubly necessary. We should have 
mentioned a " Life of Parnell," published by him shortly after 
the " Deserted Village." It was, as usual, a piece of job work, 
hastily got up for pocket-money. Johnson spoke slightingly 
of it, and the author, himself, tkought proper to apologize for 
its meagreness ;~ yet, in so doing, used a simile, whicti for 
beauty of imagery and felicity of language, is enough of itself 
to stamp a value upon the essay. 

"Such," says he, "is the very unpoetical detail of the life of 
a poet. Some dates and some few facts, scarcely more in- 
teresting than those that make the ornaments of a country 
tombstone, are all that remain of one whose labors now begin 
to excite universal curiosity. A poet, while living, is seldom 
an object sufficiently great to attract much attention; his real 
merits are known but to a few, and these are generally sparing 
in their praises. When his fame is increased by time, it is 
then too late to investigate the peculiarities of his disposition; 
the dews of morning are past, and ive vainly try to continue the 
chase by the meridian splendor." 

: .He.now entered^ into an; agreement with Davies to. .prepare 
an abridgment, in one volume- duodecimo, of his History: of 
-Rome- but first- to- write- a work for which there was a more 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 179 

immediate demand. Davies was about to republish Lord 
Bolingbroke's "Dissertation on Parties," which he conceived 
would be exceedingly applicable to the affairs of the day, and 
make a probable hit during the existing state of violent poli- 
tical excitement ; to give it still greater effect and currency he 
engaged Goldsmith to introduce it with a prefatory life of Lord 
Bolingbroke. 

About this time Goldsmith's friend and countryman Lord 
Clare, was in great affliction, caused by the death of his only 
son, Colonel Nugent, and stood in need of the sympathies of a 
kind-hearted friend. At his request, therefore, Goldsmith 
paid him a visit at his noble seat of Gosfield, taking his tasks 
with him. Davies was in a worry lest Gosfield Park should 
prove a Capua to the poet, and the time be lost. "Dr. Gold- 
smith," writes he to a friend, "has gone with Lord Clare into 
the country, and I am plagued to get the • proofs from him of 
the Life of Lord Bolingbroke." The proofs, however, were 
furnished in time for the publication of the work in December. 
The Biography, though written during a time of political 
turmoil, and introducing a work intended to be thrown into 
the arena of politics, maintained that freedom from party pre- 
judice observable in all the writings of Goldsmith. It was a 
selection of facts drawn from many unreadable sources, and 
arranged into a clear, flowing narrative, illustrative of the 
career and character of one who, as he intimates, "seemed 
formed by nature to take delight in struggling with opposi- 
tion ; whose most agreeable hours were passed in storms of his 
own creating ; whose lif e was spent in a continual conflict of 
politics, and as if that was too short for the combat, has left 
his memory as a subject of lasting contention." The sum 
received by the author for this memoir, is supposed, from 
circumstances, to have been forty pounds. 

Goldsmith did not find the residence among the great unat- 
tended with mortifications. He had now become accustomed 
to be regarded in London as a literary lion, and was annoyed, 
at what he considered a slight, on the part of Lord Camden. 
He complained of it on his return to town at a party of his 
friends. "I met him," said he, "at Lord Clare's house in the 
country ; and he took no more notice of me than if I had been 
an ordinary man." "The company," says Boswell, " laughed 
heartily at this piece of 'diverting simplicity.'" And fore- 
most among the laughers was doubtless the rattle-pated Bos- 
well. Johnson, however, stepped forward, as usual, to defend 



180 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

the poet, whom he would allow no one to assail but himself ; 
perhaps in the present instance he thought the dignity of 
literature itself involved in the question. " Nay, gentlemen," 
roared he, "Dr. Goldsmith is in the right. A nobleman ought 
to have made up to such a man as Goldsmith, and I think it is 
much against Lord Camden that he neglected him." 

After Goldsmith's return to town he received from Lord 
Clare a present of game, which he has celebrated and perpetu- 
ated in his amusing verses entitled the " Haunch of Venison." 
Some of the lines pleasantly set forth the embarrassment 
caused by the appearance of such an aristocratic delicacy in 
the humble kitchen of a poet, accustomed to look up to mutton 
as a treat : 

" Thanks, my lord, for your venison; for finer or fatter 
Never rang'd in a forest, or smok'd in a platter: 
The haunch was a picture for painters to study, 
The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy ; 
Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting, 
To spoil such a delicate picture by eating: 
I had thought in my chambers to place it in view, 
To be shown to my friends as a piece of virtu: 
As in some Irish houses where things are so-so, 
One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show; 
But, for eating a rasher, of what they take pride in, 
They'd as soon think of eating the pan it was fry'd in, 

****** 
But hang it— to poets, who seldom can eat, % , \ 

Your very good mutton's a very good treat; 
Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt; 
IVs like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt.''' 

We have an amusing anecdote of one of Goldsmith's blun- 
ders which took place on a subsequent visit to Lord Clare's, 
when that nobleman was residing in Bath. 

Lord Clare and the Duke of Northumberland had houses 
next to each other, of similar architecture. Eeturning home 
one morning from an early walk, Goldsmith, in one of his fre- 
quent fits of absence, mistook the house, and walked up into 
the duke's dining-room, where he and the duchess were about 
to sit down to breakfast. Goldsmith, still supposing himself 
in the house of Lord Clare, and that they were visitors, made 
them an easy salutation, being acquainted with them, and 
threw himself on a sofa in the lounging manner of a man per- 
fectly at home. The duke and duchess soon perceived his 
mistake, and, while they smiled internally, endeavored, with 
the eonsiderateness of well-bred people, to prevent any awk- 
ward embarrassment. They accordingly chatted sociably with 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 181 

him about matters in Bath, until, breakfast being served^ they 
invited him to partake. The truth at once flashed upon poor 
heedless Goldsmith ; he started up from his free-and-easy posi- 
tion, made a confused apology for his blunder, and would have 
retired perfectly disconcerted, had not the duke and duchess 
treated the whole as a lucky occurrence to throw him in their 
way, and exacted a promise from him to dine with them. 

This may be hung up as a companion-piece to his blunder on 
his first visit to Northumberland House. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



DINNER AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY — THE ROWLEY CONTROVERSY — 
HORACE WALPOLE'S CONDUCT TO CHATTERTON— JOHNSON AT 
REDCLIFFE CHURCH — GOLDSMITH'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND — 
DAVIES'S CRITICISM — LETTER TO BEN.NET LANGTON. 

On St. George's day of this year (1771), the first annual ban- 
quet of the Royal Academy was held in the exhibition room ; 
the walls of which were covered with works of art, about to be 
submitted to public inspection. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who first 
suggested this elegant festival, presided in his official character; 
Drs. Johnson and Goldsmith, of course, were present, as pro- 
fessors of the academy ; and beside the academicians, there was 
a large number of the most distinguished men of the day as 
guests . Goldsmith on this occasion drew on himself the atten- 
tion of the company by launching out with enthusiasm on the 
poems recently given to the world by Chatterton as the works 
of an ancient author by the name of Rowley, discovered in the 
tower of Redcliffe Church, at Bristol. Goldsmith spoke of them 
with rapture, as a treasure of old English poetry. This imme- 
diately raised the question of their authenticity; they having 
been pronounced a forgery of Chatterton's. Goldsmith was 
warm for their being genuine. When he considered, he said, 
the merit of the poetry; the acquaintance with life and the 
human heart displayed in them, the antique quaintness of the 
language and the familiar knowledge of historical events of 
their supposed day, he could not believe it possible they could 
be the work of a boy of sixteen, of narrow education, and con- 
fined to the duties of an attorney's office. They must -be the 
productions of Rowley. 



182 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Johnson, who was a stout unbeliever in Kowley, as he had 
been in Ossian, rolled in his chair and laughed at the enthusi- 
asm of Goldsmith. Horace Walpole, who sat near by, joined 
in the laugh and jeer as soon as he found that the, u trouvaille " 
as he called it, "of his friend Chatterton" was in question. 
This matter, which had excited the simple admiration of Gold- 
smith, was no novelty to him, he said. "He might, had he 
pleased, have had the honor of ushering the great discovery to . 
the learned world." And so he might, had he followed his first 
impulse in the matter, for he himself had been an original be- 
liever ; had pronounced some specimen verses sent to him by 
Chatterton wonderful for their harmony and spirit; and had 
been ready to print them and publish them to the world with 
his sanction. When he found, however, that his unknown cor- 
respondent was a mere boy, humble in sphere and indigent in 
circumstances, and when Gray and Mason pronounced the 
poems forgeries, he had changed his whole conduct toward the 
unfortunate author, and by his neglect and coldness had dashed 
all his sanguine hopes to the ground. 

Exulting in his superior discernment, this cold-hearted man 
of society now went on to divert himself, as he says, with the 
credulity of Goldsmith, whom he was accustomed to pronounce 
"an inspired idiot;" but his mirth was soon dashed, for on ask. 
ing the poet what had become of this Chatterton, he was an- 
swered, doubtless in the feeling tone of one who had experi- 
enced the pangs of despondent genius, that "he had been to 
London and had destroyed himself." 

The reply struck a pang of self-reproach even to the cold 
heart of Walpole ; a faint blush may have visited his cheek at 
his recent levity. "The persons of honor and veracity who 
were present," said he in after years, when he found it neces- 
sary to exculpate himself from the charge of heartless neg- 
lect of genius, "will attest with what surprise and concern 
I thus first heard of his death." Well might he feel concern. 
His cold neglect had doubtless contributed to madden the spirit 
of that youthful genius, and hurry him toward his untimely 
end; nor have all the excuses and palliations of Walpole's 
friends and admirers been ever able entirely to clear this 
stigma from his fame. 

But what was there in the enthusiasm and credulity of hon- 
est Goldsmith in this matter, to subject him to the laugh of 
Johnson or the raillery of Walpole? Granting the poems were 
not ancient, were they not good? Granting they were not the 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 183 

productions of Rowley, were they the less admirable for being 
the productions of Chatterton? Johnson himself testified to 
their merits and the genius of their composer when, some years 
afterward, he visited the tower of Redcliffe Church, and was 
shown the coffer in which poor Chatterton had pretended to 
find them. " This," said he, " is the most extraordinary young 
man that has encountered my knowledge. It is wonderful how 
the whelp has written such things.'''' 

As to Goldsmith, he persisted in his credulity, and had sub- 
sequently^ dispute with Dr. Percy on the subject, which in- 
terrupted and almost destroyed their friendship. After all, his 
enthusiasm was of a generous, poetic kind ; the poems remain 
beautiful monuments of genius, and it is even now difficult to 
persuade one's self that they could be entirely the production 
of a youth of sixteen. 

In the month of August was published anonymously the His- 
tory of England, on which Goldsmith had been for some time 
employed. It was in four volumes, compiled chiefly, as he ac- 
knowledged in the preface, from Rapin, Carte, Smollett, and 
Hume, "each of whom," says he, "have their admirers, in 
proportion as the reader is studious of political antiquities, 
fond of minute anecdote, a warm partisan, or a deliberate rea- 
soner." It possessed the same kind of merit as his other his- 
torical compilations ; a clear, succinct narrative, a simple, easy, 
and graceful style, and an agreeable arrangement of facts ; but 
was not remarkable for either depth of observation or minute 
accuracy of research. Many passages were transferred, with 
little if any alteration, from his Letters from a Nobleman to 
his Son" on the same subject. The work, though written with- 
out party feeling, met with sharp animadversions from political 
scribblers. The writer was charged with being unfriendly to 
liberty, disposed to elevate monarchy above its proper sphere ; 
a tool of ministers ; one who would betray his country for a 
pension. Tom Davies, the publisher, the pompous little bibli- 
opole of Russell Street, alarmed lest the book should prove 
unsalable, undertook to protect it by his pen, and wrote a long 
article in its defence in The Public Advertiser. He was vain of 
his critical effusion, and sought by nods and winks and innuen- 
does to intimate his authorship. "Have you seen," said he in a 
letter to a friend, ' ' ' An Impartial Account of Goldsmith's His- 
tory of England ' ? If you want to know who was the writer of 
it, you will find him in Russell Street ; — hut mum ! " 

The history, on the whole, however, was well received ; some 



184 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



of the critics declared that English history had never before 
been so usefully, so elegantly, and agreeably epitomized, - ' and, 
like his other historical writings, it has kept its ground " in 
English literature. 

Goldsmith bad intended this summer, in company with Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, to pay a visit to Bennet Langton, at his seat 
in Lincolnshire, where he was settled in domestic life, having 
the year previously married the Countess Dowager of Rothes. 
The following letter, however, dated from his chambers in the 
Temple, on the 7th of September, apologizes for putting off the 
visit, while it gives an amusing account of his summer occu- 
pations and of the attacks of the critics on his History of Eng- 
land: 

■ ' My dear Sir : Since I had the pleasure of seeing you last, 
I have been almost wholly in the country, at a farmer's house, 
quite alone, trying to write a comedy. It is now finished ; but 
when or how it will be acted, or whether it will be acted at all, 
are questions I cannot resolve. I am therefore so much em- 
ployed upon that, that I am under the necessity of putting off 
my intended visit to Lincolnshire for this season. Reynolds is 
just returned from Paris, and finds himself now in the case of 
a truant that must make up for his idle time by diligence. 
We have therefore agreed to postpone our journey till next 
summer, when we hope to have the honor of waiting upon 
Lady Rothes and you, and staying double the time of our late 
intended visit. We often meet, and never without remember- 
ing you. I see Mr. Beauclerc very often both in town and 
country. He is now going directly forward to become a second 
Boyle ; deep in chemistry and physics. Johnson has been down 
on a visit to a country parson, Doctor Taylor ; and is returned 
to his old haunts at Mrs. Thrale's. Burke is a farmer, en alien- , 
clant a better place; but visiting about too. Every soul is 
visiting about and merry but myself. And that is hard too, as 
I have been trying these three months to do something to make 
people laugh. There have I been strolling about the hedges, 
studying jests with a most tragical countenance. The Natural 
History is about half finished, and I will shortly finish the rest. 
God knows I am tired of this kind of finishing, which is but 
bungling work ; and that not so much my fault as the fault of 
my scurvy circumstances. ;. They begin to talk in. town. of the 
Opposition's gaining ground ; the cry of liberty is still as loud 
as ever. I have published, or Davies has published for me, an 



VL1VEK UULJJSMirU. 185 

'Abridgment of the History of England,' for which I have 
been a good deal abused in the newspapers, for betraying the 
liberties of the people. God knows I had no thought for or 
against liberty in my head ; my whole aim being to make up a 
book of a decent size, that, as 'Squire Richard says, ivould do no 
harm to nobody. However, they set me down as an arrant 
Tory, and consequently an honest man. When you come to 
look at any part of it, you'll say that I am a sore Whig. God 
bless you, and with my most respectful compliments to her 
Ladyship, I remain, dear Sir, your most affectionate humble 
servant, 

" Oliver Goldsmith." 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

MARRIAGE OF LITTLE COMEDY — GOLDSMITH AT BARTON — PRACTI- 
CAL JOKES AT THE EXPENSE OP HIS TOILET — AMUSEMENTS AT 
BARTON—AQUATIC MISADVENTURE. 

Though Goldsmith found it impossible to break from his 
literary occupations to visit Bennet Langton, in Lincolnshire, 
he soon yielded to attraptions from another quarter, in which 
somewhat of sentiment may have mingled. Miss Catherine 
Horneck, one of his beautiful fellow-travellers, otherwise called 
Little Comedy, had been married in August to Henry William 
Bunbury, Esq., a gentleman of fortune, who has become cele- 
brated for the humorous productions of his pencil. Goldsmith 
was shortly afterward invited to pay the newly married couple 
a, visit at their seat at Barton, in Suffolk. How could he re- 
sist such an invitation— especially as the Jessamy Bride would, 
of, course, be among the guests? It is true, he was hampered 
with work ; he was still more hampered with debt ; his accounts 
with Newbery were perplexed ; but all must give way. New 
advances are procured from Newbery, on the promise of a new 
tale in the style of the Vicar of Wakefield, of which he showed 
him a few roughly-sketched chapters ; so, his purse replenished 
ill the old way, " by hook or by crook," he posted off to visit 
the bride at Barton. He found there a joyous household, and 
one where he was welcomed with affection. Garrick was 
there, and played the part of master of the revels, for he was 



186 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

an intimate friend of the master of the house. Notwithstand- 
ing early misunderstandings, a social intercourse between the 
actor and the poet had grown up of late, from meeting together 
continually in the same circle. A few particulars have reached 
us concerning Goldsmith while on this happy visit. We be- 
lieve the legend has come down from Miss Mary Horneck her- 
self. ' ' While at Barton, " she says, ' ' his manners were always 
playful and amusing, taking the lead in promoting any scheme 
of innocent mirth, and usually prefacing the invitation with 
' Come, now, let us play the fool a little. ' At cards, which was 
commonly a round game, and the stake small, he was always 
the most noisy, affected great eagerness to win, and teased his 
opponents of the gentler sex with continual jest and banter on 
their want of spirit in not risking the hazards of the game. 
But one of his most favorite enjoyments was to romp with the 
children, when he threw off all reserve, and seemed one of the 
most joyous of the group. 

"One of the means by which he amused us was his songs, 
chiefly of the comic kind, which were sung with some taste 
and humor; several, I believe, were of 'his own composition, 
and I regret that I neither have copies, which might have been 
readily procured from him at the time, nor do I remember their 
names." 

His perfect good humor made him the object of tricks of all 
kinds; often in retaliation of some prank which he himself had 
played off. Unluckily these tricks were sometimes made at 
the expense of his toilet, which, with a view peradventure to 
please the eye of a certain fair lady, he had again enriched to 
the impoverishment of his purse. " Being at all times gay in 
his dress," says this ladylike legend, " he made his appearance 
at the breakfast-table in a smart black silk coat with an expen- 
sive pair of ruffles ; the coat some one contrived to soil, and it 
was sent to be cleansed ; but, either by accident, or probably 
by design, the day after it came home, the sleeves became 
daubed with paint, which was not discovered until the ruffles 
also, to his great mortification, were irretrievably disfigured. 

" He always wore a wig, a peculiarity which" those who judge 
of his appearance only from the fine poetical head of Eeynolds 
would not suspect ; and on one occasion some person contrived 
seriously to injure this important adjunct to dress. It was the 
only one he had in the country, and the misfortune seemed ir- 
reparable until the services of Mr. Bunbury's valet were called 
in, who, however, performed his functions so indifferently that 



UJU1 VMM 'VVJbJJSMlTJtl. 187 

poor Goldsmith's appearance became the signal for a general 
smile. " 

This was wicked waggery, especially when it was directed to 
mar all the attempts of the unfortunate poet to improve his 
personal appearance, about which he was at all times dubiously 
sensitive, and particularly when among the ladies. 

We have in a former chapter recorded his unlucky tumble * 
into a fountain at Versailles, when attempting a feat of agility 
in presence of the fair Hornecks. Water was destined to be 
equally baneful to him on the present occasion. "Some differ-^ 
ence of opinion," says the fair narrator, " having arisen with, 
Lord Harrington respecting the depth of a pond, the poet re- 
marked that it was not so deep but that, if anything valuable 
was to be found at the bottom, he would not hesitate to pick it 
up. His lordship, after some banter, threw in a guinea; Gold- 
smith, not to be outdone in this kind of bravado, in attempting 
to fulfil his promise without getting wet, accidentally fell in, 
to the amusement of all present, but persevered, brought out 
the money, and kept it, remarking that he had abundant ob- 
jects on whom to bestow any farther proofs of his lordship's 
whim or bounty. " 

All this is recorded by the beautiful Mary Horneck, the Jes- 
samjr Bride herself; but while she gives these amusing pictures 
of poor Goldsmith's eccentricities, and of the mischievous 
pranks played off upon him, she bears unqualified testimony, 
which we have quoted elsewhere, to the qualities of his head 
and heart, which shone forth in his. countenance, and gained 
him the love of all who knew him. 

Among the circumstances of this visit vaguely called to mind 
by this fair lady in after years, was that Goldsmith read to her 
and her sister the first part of a novel which he had in hand. 
It was doubtless the manuscript mentioned at the beginning of 
this chapter, on which he had obtained an advance of money 
from Newbery to stave off some pressing debts, and to provide , 
funds for this very visit. It never was finished. The book- 
seller, when he came afterward to examine the manuscript, 
objected to it as a mere narrative version of the Good-Natured 
Man. Goldsmith, too easily put out of conceit of his writings, 
threw it aside, forgetting that this was the very Newbery who 
kept his Vicar of Wakefield by him nearly two years through 
doubts of its success. The loss of the manuscript is deeply to 
he .regretted;. it doubtless would have- been properly wrought 
up before given to the press, and might have given us new 



188 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

scenes in life and traits of character, while it could not fail to 
bear traces of his delightful style. What a pity he had not 
been guided by the opinions of his fair listeners at Barton, 
instead of that of the astute Mr. Newbery ! 



i CHAPTER XXXIII. 

PINNER AT GENERAL OGLETHORPE'S— ANECDOTES OF THE GEN- 
ERAL — DISPUTE ABOUT DUELLING — GHOST STORIES. 

We have mentioned old General Oglethorpe as one of Gold- 
smith's aristocratical acquaintances. This veteran, born in 
1698, had commenced life early, by serving, when a mere strip- 
ling, under Prince Eugene, against the Turks. He had con- 
tinued in military life, and been promoted to the rank of major- 
general in 1745, and received a command during the Scottish 
rebellion. Being of strong Jacobite tendencies, he was suspected 
and accused of favoring the rebels ; and though acquitted by a 
court of inquiry, was never afterward employed ; or, in techni- 
cal language, was shelved. He had since been repeatedly a 
member of parliament, and had always distinguished himself 
by learning, taste, active benevolence, and high Tory principles. 
His name, however, has become historical, chiefly from his 
transactions in America, and the share he took in the settle- 
ment of the colony of Georgia. It lies enbalmed in honorable 
immortality in a single line of Pope's : 

" One. driven by strong benevolence of soul. 
Shall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole." 

The veteran was now seventy-four years of age,, but healthy 
and vigorous, and as much the preux chevalier as in his 
younger days, when he served with Prince Eugene. His table 
was often the gathering-place of men of talent. Johnson was 
frequently there, and delighted in drawing from the general 
details of his various "experiences." He was anxious that he 
should give the world his life. "I know no man," said he, 
"whose life would be more interesting." Still the vivacity of 
the general's mind and the variety of his knowledge made him 
skip from subject to subject too fast for the Lexicograpb?r. 
" Oglethorpe," growled he, "never completes what he has to 
say." 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. Jgg 

Boswell gives us an interesting and characteristic account oC 
a dinner party at the general's (April 10th, 1772), at which 
Goldsmith and Johnson were present. After dinner, when the 
cloth was removed, Oglethorpe, at Johnson's request, gave an 
account of the siege of Belgrade, in the true veteran style. 
Pouring a little wine upon the table, he drew his lines and par- 
allels with a wet finger, describing the positions of the opposing 
forces. " Here were we— here were the Turks, "to all which 
Johnson listened with the most earnest attention, poring over 
the plans and diagrams with his usual purblind closeness. 

In the course of conversation, the general gave an anecdote 
of himself in early life, when serving under Prince Eugene. 
Sitting at table once in company with a prince of VAirtem- 
berg, the latter gave a fillip to a, glass of wine, so as to make 
some of it fly in Oglethorpe's face. The manner in which it 
was done was somewhat equivocal. How was it to be taken 
by the stripling officer? If seriously, he must challenge the 
prince ; but in so doing he might fix on himself the character 
of a drawcansir. If passed over without notice, he might be 
charged with cowardice. His mind was made up in an in- 
stant. " Prince," said he, smiling, "that is an excellent joke; 
but we do it much better in England." So saying, he threw a 
whole glass of wine in the prince's face. "II a bien fait, mon 
prince," cried an old general present, " vous 1'avez commence." 
(He has done right, my prince; you commenced it.) The 
prince had the good sense to acquiesce in the decision of the 
veteran, and Oglethorpe's retort in kind was taken in good 
part. 

It was probably at the close of this story that the officious 
Boswell, ever anxious to promote conversation for the benefit 
of his note-book, started the question whether duelling were 
consistent with moral duty. The old gentleman fired up in 
an instant. "Undoubtedly," said he, with a lofty air; "un- 
doubtedly a man has a right to defend his honor." Goldsmith 
immediately carried the war into Boswell's own quarters, and 
pinned him with the question, "what he would do if affronted?" 
The pliant Boswell, who for the moment had the fear of the 
general rather than of Johnson before his eyes, replied, "he 
should think it necessary to fight." "Why, then, that solves 
the question," replied Goldsmith. "No, sir!" thundered out 
Johnson; "it does not follow that what a man would dp, is 
therefore right. " He, however, subsequently went into a dis- 
cussion to show that there were necessities in the case arising 



190 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

out of the artificial refinement of society, and its proscription 
of any one who should put up with an affront without fighting 
a duel. "He then," concluded he, "who fights a duel does 
not fight from passion against his antagonist, but out of self- 
defence, to avert the stigma of the world, and to prevent him- 
self from being driven out of society. I could wish there were 
not that superfluity of refinement ; but while such notions pre- 
vail, no doubt a man may lawfully fight a duel." 

Another question started was, whether people who disagreed 
on a capital point could live together in friendship. Johnson 
said they might. Goldsmith said they could not, as they had 
not the idem velle atque idem nolle — the same likings and 
aversions. Johnson rejoined, that they must shun the subject 
on which they disagreed. "But, sir," said Goldsmith, "when 
people live together who have something as to which they dis- 
agree, and which they want to shun, they will be in the situa- 
tion mentioned in the story of Blue Beard : ' you may look into 
all the chambers but one ;' but we should have the greatest in- 
clination to look into that chamber, to talk of that subject." 
"Sir," thundered Johnson, in a loud voice, " I am not saying 
that you could live in friendship with a man from whom you 
differ as to some point ; I am only saying that I could do it." 

Who will not say that Goldsmith had the best of this petty 
contest? How just was his remark! how felicitous the illus- 
tration of the blue chamber ! how rude and overbearing was 
the argumentum ad hominem of Johnson, when he felt that 
he had the worst of the argument ! 

The conversation turned upon ghosts. General Oglethorpe 
told the story of a Colonel Prendergast, an officer in the Duke 
of Marlborough's army, who predicted among his comrades 
that he should die on a certain day. The battle of Malplaquet 
took place on that day. The colonel was in the midst of it, 
but came out unhurt. The firing had ceased, and his brother 
officers jested with him about the fallacy of his prediction. 
"The day is not over," replied he, gravely; "I shall die, not- 
withstanding what you see." His words proved true. The 
order for a cessation of firing had not reached one of the 
French batteries, and a random shot from it killed the colonel 
on the spot. Among his effects was found a pocket-book, in 
which he had made a solemn entry, that Sir John Friend, who 
had been executed for high treason, had appeared to him, 
either in a dream or vision, and predicted that he would meet 
him on a certain day (the very day of the battle). Colonel 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 191 

Cecil, who took possession of the effects of Colonel Prender- 
gast, and read the entry in the pocket-book, told this story to 
Pope, the poet, in the presence of Geneiial Oglethorpe. 

This story, as related by the general, appears to have been 
well received, if not credited, by both Johnson and Goldsmith, 
each of whom had something to relate in kind. Goldsmith's 
brother, the clergyman in whom he had such implicit confi- 
dence, had assured him of his having seen an apparition. 
Johnson also had a friend, old Mr. Cave, the printer, at St. 
John's Gate, "an honest man, and a sensible man," who told 
him he had seen a ghost : he did not, however, like to talk of 
it, and seemed to be in great horror whenever it was men- 
tioned. "And pray, sir," asked Boswell, "what did he say 
was the appearance?" 

"Why, sir, something of a shadowy being." 

The reader will not be surprised at this superstitious turn in 
the conversation of such intelligent men, when he recollects 
that, but a few years before this time, all London had been 
agitated by the absurd story of the Cock-lane ghost ; a matter 
which Dr. Johnson had deemed worthy of his serious investi- 
gation, and about which Goldsmith had written a pamphlet. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

MR. JOSEPH CRADOCK— AN AUTHOR'S CONFIDINGS— AN AMANUEN- 
SIS—LIFE AT EDGEWARE — GOLDSMITH CONJURING — GEORGE 
COLMAN— THE FANTOCCINI. 

! Among the agreeable acquaintances made by Goldsmith 
about this time was a Mr. Joseph Cradock, a young gentleman 
of Leicestershire, living at his ease, but disposed to "make 
himself uneasy," by meddling with literature and the theatre; 
in fact, he had a passion for plays and players, and had come 
up to town with a modified translation of Voltaire's tragedy of 
Zobeide, in a view to get it acted. There was no great diffi- 
culty in the case, as he was a man of fortune, had letters of 
introduction to persons of note, and was altogether in a dif- 
ferent position from the indigent man of genius whom mana- 
gers might harass with impunity. Goldsmith met him at the 
bouse of Yates, the actor, and finding that he was a friend of 



192 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Lord Clare, soon became sociable with him. Mutual tastes 
quickened the intimacy, especially as they found means of 
serving each other. Goldsmith wrote an epilogue for the tra- 
gedy of Zobeide; and Cradock, who was an amateur musician, 
arranged the music for the Threnodia Augustalis, a lament on 
the death of the Princess Dowager of Wales, the political mis- 
tress and patron of Lord Clare, which Goldsmith had thrown 
off hastily to please that nobleman. The tragedy was played 
with some success at Covent Garden; the Lament was recited 
and sung at Mrs. Comely s'" rooms — a very fashionable resort) in 
Soho Square, got up by a woman of enterprise of that name. 
It was in whimsical ]parody of those gay and somewhat pro- 
miscuous assemblages that Goldsmith used to call the motley 
evening parties at his lodgings "little Cornelys." 

The Threnodia Augustalis was not publicly known to be by 
Goldsmith until several years after his death. 

Cradock was one of the few polite intimates who felt more 
disposed to sympathize with the generous qualities of the poet 
than to sport with his eccentricities. He sought his society 
whenever he came to town, and occasionally had him to his 
seat in the country. Goldsmith appreciated his sympathy, 
and unburthened himself to him without reserve. Seeing the 
lettered ease in which this amateur author was enabled to live, 
and the time he could bestow on the elaboration of a manu- 
script, "Ah! Mr. Cradock," cried he, "think of me that must 
write a volume every month !" He complained to him of the 
attempts made by inferior writers, and by others who could 
scarcely come under that denomination, not only to abuse and 
depreciate his writings, but to render him ridiculous as a man ; 
perverting every harmless sentiment and action into charges 
of absurdity, malice, or folly. "Sir," said he, in the fulness of 
his heart, " I am as a lion baited by curs !" 

Another acquaintance which he made about this time, was 
a young countryman of the name of M'Donnell, whom he met 
"in a state of destitution, and, of course, befriended. The fol- 
lowing grateful recollections of his kindness and his merits 
were furnished by that person in after years : 

" It was in the year 1772," writes he, "that the death of my 
elder brother— when in London, on my way to Ireland -left 
me in a most forlorn situation ; I was then about eighteen ; I 
possessed neither friends nor money, nor the means of getting 
to Ireland, of which or of England I knew scarcely anything, 
from having so long resided in France In this situation J had 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 193 

strolled about for two or three days, considering what to do, 
but unable to come to any determination, when Providence 
directed me to the Temple Gardens. I threw myself on a seat, 
and, willing to forget my miseries for a moment, drew out a 
book; that book was a volume of Boileau. I had not been 
there long when a gentleman, strolling about, passed near me, 
and observing, perhaps, something Irish or foreign in my garb 
or countenance, addressed me : ' Sir, you seem studious ; I hope 
you find this a favorable place to pursue it.' ' Not very studi- 
ous, sir; I fear it is the want of society that brings me hither; 
I am solitary and unknown in this metropolis ;' and a passage 
from Cicero— Oratio pro Archia— occurring to me, I quoted it; 
'Hsec studia pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur.' 
' You are a scholar, too, sir, I perceive.' ' A piece of one, sir; 
but I ought still to have been in the college where I had the 
good fortune to pick up the little I know.' A good deal of con- 
versation ensued; I told him part of my history, and he, in 
return, gave his address in the Temple, desiring me to call 
soon, from which, to my infinite surprise and gratification, I 
found that the person who thus seemed to take an interest in 
my fate was my countryman, and a distinguished ornament of 

letters. 

"I did not fail to keep the appointment, and was received in 
the kindest manner. He told me, smilingly, that he was not 
rich ; that he could do little for me in direct pecuniary aid, but 
would endeavor to put me in the way of doing something for 
myself ; observing, that he could at least furnish me with ad- 
vice not wholly useless to a young man placed in the heart of 
a great metropolis. ' In London,' he continued, ' nothing is to 
be got for nothing ; you must work ; and no man who chooses 
to be industrious need be under obligations to another, for 
here labor of every kind commands its reward. If you 
think proper to assist me occasionally as amanuensis, I shall 
be obliged, and you will be placed under no obligation, until 
something more permanent can be secured for you.' This 
employment, which I pursued for some time, was to translate 
passages from Buffon, which was abridged or altered, accord- 
ing to circumstances, for his Natural History." 

Goldsmith's Uterary tasks were fast getting ahead of him, 
and he began now to " toil after them in vain." 

Five volumes of the Natural History here spoken of had long 
since been pajd for by Mr. Griffin, yet most of them were still 
to be written. His young amanuensis bears testimony to his 



194 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

embarrassments and perplexities, but to the degree of equa- 
nimity with which he bore them : 

"It has been said," observes he, "that he was irritable. 
Such may have been the case at times ; nay, I believe it was 
so ; for what with the continual pursuit of authors, printers, 
and booksellers, and occasional pecuniary embarrassments, 
few could have avoided exhibiting similar marks of impa- 
tience. But it was never so toward me. I saw him only in 
his bland and kind moods, with a flow, perhaps an overflow, 
of the milk of human kindness for all who were in any manner 
dependent upon him. I looked upon him with awe and venera- 
tion, and he upon me as a kind of parent upon a child. 

"His manner and address exhibited much frankness and 
cordiality, particularly to those with whom he possessed any 
degree of intimacy. His good-nature was equally apparent. 
You could not dislike the man, although several of his follies 
and foibles you might be tempted to condemn. He was 
generous and inconsiderate ; money with him had little 
value." 

To escape from many of the tormentors just alluded to, and 
to devote himself without interruption to his task, Godsmith 
took lodgings for the summer at a farm-house near the six-mile 
stone on the Edgeware road, and carried down his books in 
two return post-chaises. He used to say he believed the 
farmer's family thought him an odd character, similar to that 
in which the Spectator appeared to his landlady and her chil- 
dren: he was The Gentleman. Boswell tells us that he went 
to visit him at the place in company with Mickle, translator of 
the Lusiad. Goldsmith was not at home. Having a curiosity 
to see his apartment, however, they went in, and found curi- 
ous scraps of descriptions of animals scrawled upon the wall 
with a black lead pencil. 

The farm-house in question is still in existence, though much 
altered. It stands upon a gentle eminence in Hyde Lane, com- 
manding a pleasant prospect toward Hendon. The room is 
still pointed out in which She Stoops to Conquer was written ; 
a convenient and airy apartment, up one flight of stairs. 

Some matter of fact traditions concerning the author were 
furnished, a few years since, by a son of the farmer, who was 
sixteen years of age at the time Goldsmith resided with his 
father. Though he had engaged to board with the family, his 
meals were generally sent to him in his room, in which he 
passed the most of his time, negligently dressed, with his shirt- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 195 

collar open, busily engaged in writing. Sometimes, probably 
when in moods of composition, he would wander into the 
kitchen, without noticing any one, stand musing with his back 
to the fire, and then hurry off again to his room, no doubt to 
commit to paper some thought which had struck bim. 

Sometimes he strolled about the fields, or was to be seen 
loitering and reading and musing under the hedges. He was 
subject to fits of wakefulness and read much in bed ; if not dis- 
posed to read, he still kept the candle burning ; if he wished to 
extinguish it, and it was out of his reach, he flung his slipper 
at it, which would be found in the morning near the over- 
turned candlestick and daubed with grease. He was noted 
here, as everywhere else, for his charitable feelings. No beg- 
gar applied to him in vain, and he evinced on all occasions 
great commiseration for the poor. 

He had the use of the parlor to receive and entertain com- 
pany, and was visited by Sir Joshua Eeynolds, Hugh Boyd, 
the reputed author of " Junius," Sir William Chambers, and 
other distinguished characters. He gave occasionally, though 
rarely, a dinner party ; and on one occasion, when his guests 
were detained by a thunder shower, he got up a dance and car- 
ried the merriment late into the night. 

As usual, he was the promoter of hilarity among the young, 
and at one time took the children of the house to see a com- 
pany of strolling players at Hendon. The greatest amusement 
to the party, however, was derived from his own jokes on the 
road and his comments on the performance, which produced 
infinite laughter among his youthful companions. 

Near to his rural retreat at Edgeware, a Mr. Seguin, an 
Irish merchant, of literary tastes, had country quarters for his 
family, where Goldsmith was always welcome. 

In this family he would indulge in playful and even grotesque 
humor, and was ready for anything— conversation, music, or a 
game of romps. He prided himself upon his dancing, and 
would walk a minuet with Mrs. Seguin, to the infinite amuse- 
ment Of herself and the children, whose shouts of laughter he 
bore with perfect good-humor. He would sing Irish songs, and 
the Scotch ballads of Johnny Armstrong. He took the lead in 
the children's sports of blind-man's buff, hunt the slipper, etc., 
or in their games at cards, and was the most noisy of the party, 
affecting to cheat and to be excessively eager to win ; while 
with children of smaller size he would turn the hind part of his 
wig before, and play all kinds of tricks to amuse them. 



196 OLlVEll GOLDSMITH] 

One word as to his musical skill and his performance on the 
flute, which comes up so invariably in all his fireside revels. 
He really knew nothing of music scientifically ; he had a good 
ear, and may have played sweetly ; but we are told he could 
not read a note of music. Roubillac, the statuary, once played 
a trick upon him in this respect. He pretended to score down 
an air as the poet played it, but put down crotchets and semi- 
breves at random. When he had finished, Goldsmith cast his 
eyes over it and pronounced it correct ! It is possible that his 
execution in music was like his style in writing; in sweetness 
and melody he may have snatched a grace beyond the reach of 
art! 

He was at all times a capital companion for children, and 
knew how to fall in with their humors. "I little thought," 
said Miss Hawkins, the woman grown, ' ' what I should have to 
boast, when Goldsmith taught me to play Jack and Jill by two 
bits of paper on his fingers." He entertained Mrs. Garrick, we 
are told, with a whole budget of stories and songs ; delivered 
the ' ' Chimney Sweep" with exquisite taste as a solo ; and per- 
formed a duet with Garrick of "Old Rose and Burn the 
Bellows." 

"I was only five years old," says the late George Colman, 
" when Goldsmith one evening, when drinking coffee with my 
father, took me on his knee and began to play with me, which 
amiable act I returned with a very smart slap in the face .; it 
must have been a tingler, for I left the mariss of my little 
spiteful paw upon his cheek. This infantile outrage was fol- 
lowed by summary justice, and I was locked up by my father 
in an adjoining room, to undergo solitary imprisonment in the 
dark. Here I began to howl and scream most abominably. 
At length a friend appeared to extricate me from jeopardy ; it 
was the good-natured doctor himself, with a lighted candle in 
his hand, and a smile upon his countenance, which was still 
partially red from the effects Of my petulance. I sulked and 
sobbed, and he fondled and soothed until I began to brighten. 
He seized the propitious moment, placed three hats upon the 
carpet, and a shilling under each; the shillings, he told me, 
were England, France, and Spain. ' Hey, presto, cockolorum ! ' 
cried the doctor, and lo ! on uncovering the shillings, they were 
all found congregated under one. I was no politician at the 
time, and therefore might not have wondered at the sudden 
revolution which brought England, France, and Spain all under 
One crown; but, as I was also no conjurer, it amazed me be- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. VJ7 

yond measure. From that time, whenever the doctor came to 
visit my father, 

'I pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile;' 

a game of romps constantly ensued, and we were always cor- 
dial friends and merry playfellows." 

Although Goldsmith made the Edge ware farmhouse his head- 
quarters for the summer, he would absent himself for weeks at 
a time on visits to Mr. Cradock, Lord Clare, and Mr. Langton, 
at their country-seats. He would often visit town, also, to 
dine and partake of the public amusements. On one occasion 
he accompanied Edmund Burke to witness a performance of 
the Italian Fantoccini or Puppets, in Panton Street ; an exhibi- 
tion which had hit the caprice of the town, and was in great 
vogue. The puppets were set in motion by wires, so well con- 
cealed as to be with difficulty detected. Bos well, with his 
usual obtuseness with respect to Goldsmith, accuses him of be- 
ing jealous of the puppets ! ' ' When Burke, " said he, ' ' praised 
the dexterity with which one of them tossed a pike," ' Pshaw,' 
said Goldsmith with some warmth, ' I can do it better myself. ' " 
" The same evening," adds Boswell, "when supping at Burke's 
lodgings, he broke his shin by attempting to exhibit to the 
company how much better he could jump over a stick than the 
puppets." 

Goldsmith jealous of puppets ! This even passes in absurdity 
Boswell's charge upon him of being jealous of the beauty of 
the two Miss Hornecks. 

The Panton Street puppets were destined to be a source of 
further amusement to the town, and of annoyance to the little 
autocrat of the stage. Foote, the Aristophanes of the English 
drama, who was always on the alert to turn every subject of 
popular excitement to account, seeing the success of the Fan- 
toccini, gave out that he should produce a Primitive Puppet- 
show at the Haymarket, to be entitled The Handsome Cham- 
bermaid, or Piety in Pattens : intended to burlesque the senti- 
mental comedy which Garrick still maintained at Drury Lane. 
The idea of a play to be performed in a regular theatre by 
puppets excited the curiosity and talk of the town. "Will 
your puppets be as large as life, Mr. Foote?" demanded a lady 
of rankf " Oh, no, my lady;" replied Foote, u not much larger 
than Garrick" 



198 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

BROKEN HEALTH — DISSIPATION AND DEBTS— THE IRISH WIDOW — 
PRACTICAL JOKES — SCRUB— A MISQUOTED PUN— MALAGRIDA— 
GOLDSMITH PROVED TO BE A FOOL — DISTRESSED BALLAD 
SINGERS— THE POET AT RANELAGH. 

Goldsmith returned to town in the autumn (1772), with his 
health much disordered. His close fits of sedentary applica- 
tion, during which he in a manner tied himself to the mast, 
had laid the seeds of a lurking malady in his system, and pro- 
duced a severe illness in the course of the summer. Town life 
was not favorable to the health either of body or mind. He 
could not resist the siren voice of temptation, which, now that 
he had become a notoriety, assailed him on every side. Ac- 
cordingly we find him launching away in a career of social 
dissipation; dining and supping out; at clubs, at routs, at 
theatres ; he is a guest with. Johnson at the Thrales', and an 
object of Mrs. Thrale's lively sallies ; he is a Hon at Mrs. Vesey's 
and Mrs. Montagu's, where some of the high-bred blue-stock- 
ings pronounce him a "wild genius, "and others, peradventure, 
a "wild Irishman." In the meantime his pecuniary difficul- 
ties are increasing upon him, conflicting with his proneness to 
pleasure and expense, and contributing by the harassment of 
his mind to the wear and tear of his constitution. His ' \ Ani- 
mated Nature, " though not finished, has been entirely paid for, 
and the money spent. The money advanced by Garrick on 
Newbery's note still hangs over him as a debt. The tale on 
which Newbery had loaned from two to three hundred pounds 
previous to the excursion to Barton has proved a failure. The 
bookseller is urgent for the settlement of his complicated ac- 
count ; the perplexed author has nothing to offer him in liqui- 
dation but the copyright of the comedy which he has in his 
portfolio; "Though to tell you the truth, Frank," said he, 
"there are great doubts of its success." The offer was ac- 
cepted, and, like bargains wrung from Goldsmith in times of 
emergency, turned out a golden speculation to the bookseller. 

In this way Goldsmith went on "overrunning the consta- 
ble," as he termed it ; spending everything in advance ; work- 
ing with an overtasked head and weary heart to pay for past 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 199 

pleasures and past extravagance, and at the same time incur- 
ring new debts, to perpetuate his struggles and darken his 
future prospects. While the excitement of society and the ex- 
citement of composition conspire to keep up a feverishness of 
the system, he has incurred an unfortunate habit of quacking 
himself with James' powders, a fashionable panacea of the 
day. 

A. farce, produced this year by Garrick, and entitled The 
Irish Widow, perpetuates the memory of . practical jokes 
played off a year or two previously upon the alleged vanity 
of poor, simple-hearted Goldsmith. He was one evening at 
the house of his friend Burke, when he was beset by a tenth 
muse, an Irish widow and authoress, just arrived from Ire- 
land, full of brogue and blunders, and poetic fire and rantipole 
gentility. She was soliciting subscriptions for her poems ; and 
assailed Goldsmith for his patronage; the great Goldsmith — 
her countryman, and of course her friend. She overpowered 
him with eulogiums on his own poems, and then read some 
of her own, with vehemence of tone and gesture, appealing 
continually to the great Goldsmith to know how he relished 
them. 

Poor Goldsmith did all that a kind-hearted and gallant gen- 
tleman could do in such a case ; he praised her poems as far as 
the stomach of his sense would permit : perhaps a little fur- 
ther; he offered her his subscription, and it was not until she 
had retired with many parting compliments to the great Gold- 
smith, that he pronounced the poetry which had been inflicted 
on him execrable. The whole scene had been a hoax got up 
by Burke for the amusement of his company, and the Irish 
widow, so admirably performed, had been personated by a 
Mrs. Balfour, a lady of his connection, of great sprightliness 
and talent. 

We see nothing in the story to establish the alleged vanity 
of Goldsmith, but we think it tells rather to the disadvantage 
of Burke ; being unwarrantable under their relations of friend- 
ship, and a species of waggery quite beneath his genius. 

Croker, in his notes to Boswell, gives another of these prac- 
tical jokes perpetrated by Burke at the expense of Goldsmith's 
credulity. It was related to Croker by Colonel O'Moore, of 
Cloghan Castle, in Ireland, who was a party concerned. The 
colonel and Burke, walking one day through Leicester Square 
on their way to Sir Joshua Eeynolds's, with whom they were 
to dine, observed Goldsmith, who was likewise to be a guest, 



200 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

standing and regarding a crowd which, was staring and shout- 
ing at some foreign ladies in the window of a hotel." " Observe 
Goldsmith, "said Burke to O'Moore, "and mark what passes be- 
tween us at Sir Joshua's." They passed on and reached there 
before him. Burke received Goldsmith with affected reserve 
and coldness; being pressed to explain the reason, "Beally," 
said he, "I am ashamed to keep company with a person who 
could act as you have just done in the Square." Goldsmith 
protested he was ignorant of what was meant. "Why," said 
Burke, " did you not exclaim as you were looking up at those 
women, what stupid beasts the crowd must be for staring 
with such admiration at those painted Jezebels, while a man of 
your talents passed by unnoticed?" "Surely, surely, my dear 
friend," cried Goldsmith, with alarm, "surely I did not say 
so?" "Nay," replied Burke, "if you had not said so, how 
should I have known it?" "That's true," answered Gold- 
smith ; " I -am very sorry — it was very foolish : I do recollect 
that something of the hind passed through my mind, but I did 
not think I had uttered it. " 

It is proper to observe that these jokes were played off 
by Burke before he had attained the full eminence of his social 
position, and that he may have felt privileged to take liberties 
with Goldsmith as his countryman and college associate. It is 
evident, however, that the peculiarities of the latter, and his 
guileless simplicity, made him a butt for the broad waggery of 
some of his associates; while others more polished, though 
equally perfidious, were on the watch to give currency to his 
bulls and blunders. 

The Stratford jubilee, in honor of Shakespeare, where Bos- 
well had made a fool of himself, was still in every one's mind. 
It was sportively suggested that a fete should be held at Lich- 
field in honor of Johnson and Garrick, and that the Beaux' 
Stratagem should be played by the members of the Literary 
Club. "Then," exclaimed Goldsmith, " I shall certainly play 
Scrub. I should like of all things to try my hand at that char- 
acter." The unwary speech, which any one else might have 
made without comment, has been thought worthy of record as 
whimsically characteristic. Beauclerc was extremely apt to 
circulate anecdotes at his expense, founded perhaps on some 
trivial incident, but dressed up with the embellishments of his 
sarcastic brain. One relates to a venerable dish of peas, served 
up at Sir Joshua's table, which should have been green, but 
were any other color. A wag suggested to Goldsmith, in a/: 



OLlVEit GOLDSMITH. gOl 

whisper, that they should be sent to Hammersmith, as that 
was the way to turn-em-green (Turnham-Green). Goldsmith, 
delighted with the pun, endeavored to repeat it at Burke's 
table, but missed the point. ' ' That is the way to make 'em 
green," said he. Nobody laughed. He perceived he was at 
fault. "I mean that is the road to turn 'em green." A dead 
pause and a stare; " whereupon," adds Beauclerc, " he started 
up disconcerted and abruptly left the table. " This is evidently 
one of Beauclerc's caricatures. 

On another occasion the poet and Beauclerc were seated at 
the theatre next to Lord Shelburne, the minister, whom politi- 
cal writers thought proper to nickname Malagrida. ' ' Do you 
know," said Goldsmith to his lordship in the course of conver- 
sation, "that I never could conceive why they call you Mal- 
agrida, for Malagrida was a very good sort of man." This was 
too good a trip of the tongue for Beauclerc to let pass: he 
serves it up in his next letter to Lord Charlemont, as a speci- 
men of a mode of turning a thought the wrong way, peculiar 
to the poet ; he makes merry over it with his witty and sarcas- 
tic compeer, Horace Walpole, who pronounces it " a picture- of 
Goldsmith's whole life." Dr. Johnson alone, when he hears it 
bandied about as Goldsmith's last blunder, growls forth a 
friendly defence: "Sir," said he, "it was a mere blunder in 
emphasis. He meant to say, I wonder they should use Mala- 
grida as a term of reproach." Poor Goldsmith! On such 
points he was ever doomed to be misinterpreted. Eogers, the 
poet, meeting in times long subsequent with a survivor of 
those days, asked him what Goldsmith really was in conversa- 
tion. The old conversational character was too deeply stamped 
in the memory of the veteran to be effaced. " Sir," replied the 
old wiseacre, ' ' he was a fool. The right word never came to 
him. If you gave him back a bad shilling, he'd say, Why it's 
as good a shilling as ever was born. You know he ought to 
have said coined. Coined, sir, never entered his head. He was 
a fool, sir." 

We have so many anecdotes in which Goldsmith's simplicity 
is played upon, that it is quite a treat to meet with one in which 
he is represented playing upon the simplicity of others, espe- 
cially when the victim of his joke is the " Great Cham" himself, 
whom all others are disposed to hold so much in awe. Gold- 
smith and Johnson were supping cosily together at a tavern in 
Dean 'Street, Soho, kepb by Jack Eoberts, a singer at Drury 
Lane, and a protege of Garrick's. Johnson delighted in these 



\ 



202 OLIVER GOLDSMITM. 

gastronomical tete-a-tetes, and was expatiating in high good 
humor on rumps and kidneys, the veins of his forehead swell- 
ing with the ardor of mastication. " These," said he, "are 
pretty little things ; but a man .must eat a great many of them 
before he is filled." "Aye; but how many of them," asked 
Goldsmith, with affected simplicity, "would reach to the 
moon?" "To the moon! Ah, sir, that, I fear, exceeds your 
calculation." "Not at all, sir; I think I could tell." "Pray 
then, sir, let us hear." "Why, sir, one, if it were long 
enough!'''' Johnson growled for a time at finding himself 
caught in such a trite schoolboy trap. "Well, sir," cried he at 
length, "I have deserved it. I should not have provoked so 
foolish an answer by so foolish a question." 

Among the many incidents related as illustrative of Gold- 
smith's vanity and envy is one which occurred one evening 
when he was in a drawing-room with a party of ladies, and a 
ballad-singer under the window, struck up his favorite song of 
" Sally Salisbury." " How miserably this woman sings !" ex- 
claimed he. "Pray, doctor," said the lady of the house, 
"could you do it better?" "Yes, madam, and the company 
shall be judges." The company, of course, prepared to be 
entertained by an absurdity ; but their smiles were well-nigh 
turned to tears, for he acquitted himself with a skill and 
pathos that drew universal applause. He had, in fact, a deli- 
cate ear for music, which had been jarred by the false notes of 
the ballad-singer; and there were certain pathetic ballads, 
associated with recollections of his childhood, which were sure 
to touch the springs of his heart. We have another story of 
him, connected with ballad-singing, which is still more charac- 
teristic. He was one evening at the house of Sir William 
Chambers, in Berners Street, seated at a whist-table with Sir 
William, Lady Chambers, and Baretti, when all at once he 
threw down his cards, hurried out of the room and into the 
street. He returned in an instant, resumed his seat, and the 
game went on. Sir William, after a little hesitation, ventured 
to ask the cause of his retreat, fearing he had been overcome 
by the heat of the room. "Not at all," replied Goldsmith; 
"but in truth I could not bear to hear that unfortunate woman 
in the street, half singing, half sobbing, for such tones could 
only arise from the extremity of distress; her voice grated 
painfully on my ear and jarred my frame, so that I could not 
rest until I had sent her away. " "It was in fact a poor ballad- 
singer, whose cracked voice had been heard by others of the 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 203 

party, but without having the same effect on their sensibilities. 
It was the reality of his fictitious scene in the story of the 
" Man in Black;" wherein he describes a woman in rags with 
one child in her arms and another on her back, attempting to 
sing ballads, but with such a mournful voice that it was dim- 
cult to determine whether she was singing or crying. "A 
wretch," he adds, "who, in the deepest distress, still aimed at 
good humor, was an object my friend was by no means capable 
of withstanding." The Man in Black gave the poor woman all 
that he had— a bundle of matches. Goldsmith, it is probable, 
sent his ballad-singer away rejoicing with all the money in his 
pocket. 

Eanelagh was at that time greatly in vogue as a place of 
public entertainment. It was situated near Chelsea ; the prin- 
cipal room was a rotunda of great dimensions, with an orches- 
tra in the centre, and tiers of boxes all round. It was a place 
to which Johnson resorted occasionally. "lama great friend 
to public amusements," said he, "for they keep people from 
vice."* Goldsmith was equally a friend to them, though per- 
haps not altogether on such moral grounds. He was particu- 
larly fond of masquerades, which were then exceedingly popu- 
lar, and got up at Eanelagh with great expense and magnifi- 
cence. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who had likewise a taste for 
such amusements, was sometimes his companion, at other 
times he went alone; his peculiarities of person and manner 
would soon betray him, whatever might be his disguise, and 
he would be singled out by wags, acquainted with his foibles, 
and more successful than himself in maintaining their incog- 
nito, as a capital subject to be played upon. Some, pretend- 
ing not to know him, would decry his writings, and praise 
those of his contemporaries; others would laud his verses to 
the skies, but purposely misquote and burlesque them; others 
would annoy him with parodies ; while one young lady, whom 
he was teasing, as he supposed, with great success and infinite 
Humor, silenced his rather boisterous laughter by quoting his 
own line about "the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind." 

* "Alas, sir!" said Johnson, speaking, when in another mood, of grand houses, 
fine gardens, and splendid places of public amusement; "alas, sir! these are only 
struggles for happiness. When I first entered Ranelagh it gave an expansion and 
gay sensation to my mind, such as I never experienced anywhere else. But, as 
Xerxes wept when he viewed his immense army, and considered Aat not one of 
that great multitude would be alive a hundred years afterward, so it went to my 
heart to consider that there was not one in all that brilliant circle that was not afraid 
to go home and think." 



204 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



On one occasion he was absolutely driven out of the house hf 
the persevering jokes of a wag, whose complete disguise gave 
him no means of retaliation. 

His name appearing in the newspapers among the distin- 
guished persons present at one of these amusements, his old 
enemy, Kenrick, immediately addressed to him a copy of 
anonymous verses, to the following purport. 

To Dr. Goldsmith ; on seeing his name in the list of mum- 
mers at the late masquerade : 

" How widely different, Goldsmith, are the ways 
Of Doctors now, and those of ancient daysl 
Theirs taught the truth in academic shades, 
Ours in lewd hops and midnight masquerades, 
So changed the times ! say, philosophic sage, 
Whose genius suits so well this tasteful age, 
Is the Pantheon, late a sink obscene, 
Become the fountain of chaste Hippocrene? 
Or do thy moral numbers quaintly flow, 
Inspired by th' Aganippe of Soho? 
Do wisdom's sons gorge cates and vermicelli, 
Like beastly Bickerstaffe or bothering Kelly? 
Or art thou tired of th' undeserved applause 
Bestowed on bards affecting Virtue's cause? 
Is this the good that makes the humble vain, 
The good philosophy should not disdain? 
If so, let pride dissemble all it can. 
A modern sage is still much less than man." 

Goldsmith was keenly sensitive to attacks of the kind, and 
meeting Kenrick at the Chapter Coffee-house, called him to 
sharp account for taking such a liberty with his name, and 
calling his morals in question, merely on account of his being 
seen at a place of general resort and amusement. Kenrick 
shuffled and sneaked, protesting that he meant nothing dero- 
gatory to his private character. Goldsmith let him know, 
however, that he was aware of his having more than once in- 
dulged in attacks of this dastard kind, and intimated that an- 
other such outrage would be followed by personal chastise- 
ment. 

Kenrick having played the craven in his presence, avenged 
himself as soon as he was gone by complaining of his having 
made a wanton attack upon him, and by making coarse com- 
ments upon his writings, conversation, and person. 

The scurrilous satire of Kenrick, however unmerited, may 
have checked Goldsmith's taste for masquerades. Sir Joshua 
Reynolds calling on the poet one morning, found him walking 
about his room in somewhat of a reverie, kicking a bundle of 



; 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 205 

clothes before Mm like a foot-ball. It proved to be an expen- 
sive masquerade dress, which he said he had been fool enough 
to purchase, and as there was no other way of getting the 
worth of his money, he was trying to take it out in exercise. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

INVITATION TO CHRISTMAS — THE SPRING VELVET COAT— THE 
HAYMAKING WIG — THE MISCHANCES OP LOO— THE FAIR CUL- 
PRIT—A DANCE WITH THE JESSAMY BRIDE. 

From the feverish dissipations of town, Goldsmith is sum- 
moned away to partake of the genial dissipations of the coun- 
try. In the month of December, a letter from Mrs. Bunbury 
invites him down to Burton, to pass the Christmas holidays. 
The letter is written in the usual playful vein which marks his 
intercourse with this charming family. He is to come in his 
" smart spring- velvet coat," to bring a new wig to dance with 
the haymakers in, and above all, to follow the advice of herself 
and her sister (the Jessamy Bride), in playing loo. This letter, 
which plays so archly, yet kindly, with some of poor Gold- 
smith's peculiarities, and bespeaks such real ladylike regard 
for him, requires a word or two of annotation. The spring- 
velvet suit alluded to appears to have been a gallant adorn- 
ment (somewhat in the style of the famous bloom-colored coat) 
in which Goldsmith had figured in the preceding month of 
May— the season of blossoms — for, on the 21st of that month, 
we find the following entry in the chronicle of Mr. William 
Filby, tailor: To your blue velvet suit, £21 10-s, 9d. Also, about 
the same time, a suit of livery and a crimson collar for the 
serving man. Again we hold the Jessamy Bride responsible 
for this gorgeous splendor of wardrobe. 

The new wig no doubt is a bag-wig and solitaire, still highly 
the mode, and in which Goldsmith is represented as figuring 
when in full dress, equipped with his sword. 

As to the dancing with the haymakers, we presume it al- 
ludes to some gambol of the poet, in the course of his former 
visit to Barton ; when he ranged the fields and lawns a char- 
tered libertine, and tumbled into the fish-ponds. 

As to the suggestions about loo, they are in sportive allusion 
tip the doctor's mode of playing that gam© in their merry 



206 ' OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

evening parties; affecting the desperate gambler and easy- 
dupe ; running counter to all rule ; making extravagant ven- 
tures ; reproaching all others with cowardice ; dashing at all 
hazards at the pool, and getting himself completely loo'd, to 
the great amusement of the company. The drift of the fair 
sisters' advice was most probably to tempt him on, and then 
leave him in the lurch. 

With these comments we subjoin Goldsmith's reply to Mrs. 
Bunbury, a fine piece of off-hand, humorous writing, which 
has but in late years been given to the public, and which 
throws a familiar light on the social circle at Barton. 

"Madam: I read your letter with all that allowance which 
critical candor could require, but after all find so much to 
object to, and so much to raise my indignation, that I cannot 
help giving it a serious answer. I am not so ignorant, 
madam, as not to see there are many sarcasms contained in it, 
and solecisms also. (Solecism is a word that comes from the 
town of Soleis in Attica, among the Greeks, built by Solon, 
and applied as we use the word Kidderminster for curtains 
from a town also of that name — but this is learning you have 
no taste for!) — I say, madam, there are many sarcasms in it, 
and solecisms also. But not to seem an ill-natured critic, I'll 
take leave to quote your own words, and give you my 
remarks upon them as they occur. You begin as follows: 

'I hope, my good Doctor, you soon will be here, 
And your spring velvet coat very smart will appear, 
To open our ball the first day of the year.' 

"Pray, madam, where did you ever find the epithet 'good,' 
applied to the title of doctor? Had you called me 'learned 
doctor,' or 'grave doctor, 1 or 'noble doctor,' it might be 
allowable, because they belong to the profession. But, not to 
cavil at trifles, you talk of 'my spring- velvet coat,' and advise 
me to wear it the first day in the year, that is, in the middle 
of winter ! — a spring-velvet coat in the middle of winter ! ! ! 
That would be a solecism indeed! and yet to increase the 
inconsistence, in another part of your letter you call me a 
beau. Now, on one side or other you must be wrong. If I 
am a beau, I can never think of wearing a spring- velvet in 
winter; and if I am not a beau, why then, that explains 
itself. But let me go on to your two next strange lines : 

' And bring with you a wig, that is modish and gay 
To danpe with the girls that are makers of hay,' 



OtlVMl GOLDSMITH got 

u The absurdity of making hay at Christmas you yourself 
seem sensible of: you say your sister will laugh; and so 
indeed she well may! The Latins have an expression for a 
contemptuous kind of laughter, 'naso contemnere adunco;' 
that is, to laugh with a crooked nose. She may laugh at you 
in the manner of the ancients if she thinks fit. But now I 
come to the most extraordinary of all extraordinary proposi- 
tions, which is, to take your and your sister's advice in 
playing at loo. The presumption of the offer raises my indig- 
nation beyond the bounds of prose; it inspires me at once 
with verse and resentment. I take advice! and from whom? 
You shall hear. 

" First let me suppose, what may shortly be true, 
•The company set, and the word to be Loo: 
All smirking, and pleasant, and big with adventure, 
And ogling the stake which is fix'd in the centre. 
Round and round go the cards, while I inwardly damn 
At never once finding a visit from Pam. 
I lay down my stake, apparently cool, 
While the harpies about me all pocket the pool. 
I fret in my gizzard, yet, cautious and sly, 
I wish all my friends may be bolder than I: 
Yet still they sit snug, not a creature will aim 
By losing their money to venture at fame. 
'Tis in vain that at niggardly caution I scold, 
'Tis in vain that I flatter the brave and the bold: 
All play their own way, and they think me an ass, . . . 
'What does Mrs. Bunbury? ' . . . 'I, sir? I pass.' 
' Pray what does Miss Horneck? take courage, come do, 1 . . . 
' Who, I? let me see, sir, why I must pass too.' 
Mr. Bunbury f rets, and I fret like the devil, 
To see them so cowardly, lucky, and civil. 
Yet still I sit snug, and continue to sigh on, 
Till, made by my losses as bold as a lion, 
I venture at all, while my avarice regards 
The whole pool as my own. . . . ' Come give me five cards.' 
' Well done! ' cry the ladies; 'Ah, Doctor, that's good ! 
The pool's very rich, ... ah ! the Doctor is loo'd ! ' 
Thus foil'd in my courage, on all sides perplext, 
I ask for advice from the lady that's next: 
' Pray, ma'am, be so good as to give your advice; 
Don't you think the best way is to venture for't twice? ' 
'I advise,' cries the lady, ' to try it, I own. . . . 
'Ah! the Doctor is loo'd! Come, Doctor, put down.' 
Thus, playing, and playing, I still grow more eager, 
And so bold, and so bold, I'm at last a bold beggar. 
Now, ladies, I ask, if law -matters you're skill' d in, 
Whether crimes such as yonrs should not come before Fielding: 
For giving advice that is not worth a straw, 
May well be call'd picking of pockets in law; 
And picking of pockets, with which I now charge ye, 
Is, by quinto Elizabeth, Death without Clergy. 



203 olivbr &OEMMWM 

What justice, when both to the Old Bailey brought! 

By the gods, I'll enjoy it, tho' 'tis but in thought! 

Both are plac'd at the bar, with all proper decorum^ 

With bunches of fennel, and nosegays before 'em; 

Both cover^their faces with mobs and all that, 

But the judge bids them, angrily, take off their hat. 

When uncover'd, a buzz of inquiry runs round, 

' Pray what are their crimes? ' . . . .' They've been pilfering found. 1 

'.But, pray, who have they pilfer'd? ' . . . ' A doctor, I hear;' 

' What) yon solemn-faced, odd-looking man that stands near? ' 

* The same/ . . . ' What a pity! how does it surprise one, 

Two handsomer culprits 1 never set eyes on! ' 

Then their friends all come round me with cringing and leering, 

To melt me to pity, and soften my swearing. 

First Sir Charles advances With phrases well-strung, 

' Consider, dear Doctor, the girls are but young.' 

1 The younger the wrose, ' I return him again, 

' It shows that their habits are all dyed in grain.' 

4 But then they're so handsome, one's bosom it grieves.* 

'What signifies handsome, when people are thieves? ' 

'But where is your justice? their cases are hard.' 

' What signifies justice? I want the reward. 

" ' There's the parish of Edmonton offers forty pounds; 
there's the parish of St. Leonard Shorediteh offers forty- 
pounds; there's the parish of Tyburn, from the Hog-in-the- 
pound to St. Giles' watch-house, offers forty pounds— I shall 
have all that if I convict them ! ' — 

" ' But consider their case, ... it may yet be your own! 
And see how they kneel ! Is your heart made of stone?' 
This moves ! . . . so at last I agree to relent, 
For ten pounds in hand, and ten pounds to be spent. 

"I challenge you all to answer this: I tell you, you cannot. 
It cuts deep. But now for the rest of the letter: and next — but 
I want room— so I believe I shall battle the rest out at Barton 
some day next week. I don't value you all I 

"O. G." 

We regret that we have no record of this Christmas visit to 
Barton ; that the poet had no Boswell to follow at his heels, 
and take note of all his sayings and doings. We can only 
picture him in our minds, casting off all care ; enacting the lord 
of misrule; presiding at the Christmas revels; providing all 
kinds of merriment ; keeping the card-table in an uproar, and 
finally opening the ball on the first day of the year in his 
spring-velvet suit, with the Jessamy Bride for a partner. 



QUVm GOLDSMITH, 209 



CHAPTEE XXXVII. 

THEATRICAL DELAYS— NEGOTIATIONS WITH COLMAN— LETTER TO 
GARRICK— CROAKING OF THE MANAGER— NAMING OF THE PLAY 
—SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER — FOOTE'S PRIMITIVE PUPPET-SHOW, 
PIETY ON PATTENS — FIRST PERFORMANCE OF THE COMEDY — 
AGITATION OF THE AUTHOR— SUCCESS— COLMAN SQUIBBED OUT 
OF TOWN. 

The gay life depicted in the two last chapters, while it kept 
Goldsmith in a state of continual excitement, aggravated the 
malady which was impairing his constitution ; yet his increas- 
ing perplexities in money matters drove him to the dissipation 
of society as a relief from solitary care. The delays of the 
theatre added to those perplexities. He had long since finished 
his new comedy, yet the year 1772 passed away without his 
being able to get it on the stage. No one, uninitiated in the 
interior of a theatre, that little world of traps and trickery, 
can have any idea of the obstacles and perplexities multiplied 
in the way of the most eminent and successful author by the 
mismanagement of managers, the jealousies and intrigues of 
rival authors, and the fantastic and impertinent caprices of 
actors. A long and baffling negotiation was carried on between 
Goldsmith and Colman, the manager of Covent Garden; who 
retained the play in his hands until the middle of January 
(1773), without coming to a decision. The theatrical season 
was rapidly passing away, and Goldsmith's pecuniary difficul- 
ties were augmenting and pressing on him. We may judge of 
his anxiety by the folio wing letter: 

" To George Colman, Esq. 

"Dear Sir: I entreat you'll relieve me from that state of 
suspense in which I have been kept for a long time. Whatever 
objections you have made or shall make to my play, I will en- 
deavor to remove and not argue about them. To bring in any 
new judges either of its merits or faults I can never submit to. 
Upon a former occasion, when my other play was before Mr. 
Garrick, he offered to bring me before Mr. Whitehead's tribu- 
nal, but I refused the proposal with indignation : I hope I shall 
not experience as harsh treatment from you as from him, I 



210 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

have, as you know, a large sum of money to make up shortly; 
by accepting my play, I can readily satisfy my creditor that 
way ; at any rate, I must look about to some certainty to be 
prepared. For God's sake take the play, and let us make the 
best of it, and let me have the same measure, at least, which 
you have given as bad plays as mine. 

" I am your friend and servant, 

" Oliver Goldsmith." 

Colman returned the manuscript with the blank sides of the 
leaves scored with disparaging comments and suggested alter- 
ations, but with the intimation that the faith of the theatre 
should be kept, and the play acted notwithstanding. Gold- 
smith submitted the criticisms to some of his friends, who pro- 
nounced them trivial, unfair, and contemptible, and intimated 
that Colman, being a dramatic writer himself, might be actu- 
ated by jealousy. The play was then sent, with Colman's 
comments written on it, to Garrick ; but he had scarce sent it 
when Johnson interfered, represented the evil that might result 
from an apparent rejection of it by Covent Garden, and under- 
took to go forthwith to Colman, and have a talk with him on 
the subject. Goldsmith, therefore, penned the following note 
to Garrick: 

" Dear Sir: I ask many pardons for the trouble I gave you 
yesterday. Upon more mature deliberation, and the advice of 
a sensible friend, I began to think it indelicate in me to throw 
upon you the odium of confirming Mr. Colman's sentence. I 
therefore request you will send my play back by my servant ; 
for having been assured of having it acted at the other house, 
though I confess yours in every respect more to my wish, yet 
it would be folly in me to forego an advantage which lies in 
my power of appealing from Mr. Colman's opinion to the 
judgment of the town. I entreat, if not too late, you will keep 
this affair a secret for some time. 

" I am, dear sir, your very humble servant, 

"Oliver Goldsmith." 

The negotiation of Johnson with the manager of Covent 
Garden was effective. " Colman," he says, "was prevailed on 
at last, by much solicitation, nay, a kind of force," to bring 
forward the comedy. Still the manager was ungenerous ; or, 
at least, indiscreet enough to express his opinion, that it would 
not reach a second representation. The plot, he said, was bad ? 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 2H 

and the interest not sustained ; ' ' it dwindled, and dwindled, 
and at last went out like the snuff of a candle. " The effect of 
his croaking was soon apparent within the walls of the theatre. 
Two of the most popular actors, Woodward and Gentleman 
Smith, to whom the parts of Tony Lumpkin and Young Mar- 
low were assigned, refused to act them ; one of them alleging, 
in excuse, the evil predictions of the manager. Goldsmith was 
advised to postpone the performance of his play until he could 
get these important parts well supplied. "No," said he, "I 
would sooner that my play were damned by bad players than 
merely saved by good acting." 

Quick was substituted for Woodward in Tony Lumpkin, and 
Lee Lewis, the harlequin of the theatre, for Gentleman Smith 
in Young Marlow ; and both did justice to their parts. 

Great interest was taken by Goldsmith's friends in the suc- 
cess of his piece. The rehearsals were attended by Johnson, 
Cradock, Murphy, Reynolds and his sister, and the whole Hor- 
neck connection, including, of course, the Jessamy Bride, 
whose presence may have contributed to flutter the anxious 
heart of the author. The rehearsals went off with great ap- 
plause, but that Colman attributed to the partiality of friends. 
He continued to croak, and refused to risk any expense in new 
scenery or dresses on a play which he was sure would prove a 
failure. 

The time was at hand for the first representation, and as yet 
the comedy was without a title. " We are all in labor for a 
name for Goldy's play," said Johnson, who, as usual, took a 
kind of fatherly protecting interest in poor Goldsmith's affairs. 
The Old House a New Inn was thought of for a time, but still 
did not please. Sir Joshua Reynolds proposed The Belle's 
Stratagem, an elegant title, but not considered applicable, the 
perplexities of the comedy being produced by the mistake of 
the hero, not the stratagem of the heroine. The name was 
afterward adopted by Mrs. Cowley for one of her comedies. 
The Mistakes of a Night was the title at length fixed upon, to 
which Goldsmith prefixed the words She Stoops to Conquer. 

The evil bodings of Colman still continued ; they were even 
communicated in the box office to the servant of the Duke of 
Gloucester, who was sent to engage a box. Never did the play 
of a popular writer struggle into existence through more diffi- 
culties. 

In the meantime Foote's Primitive Puppetshow, entitled the 
ffandsome Housemaid, or Piety on Pattens, had been brought 



212 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

out at the Haymarket on the 15th of February. All the world, 
fashionable and unfashionable, had crowded to the theatre. 
The street was thronged with equipages — the doors were 
stormed by the mob. The burlesque was completely success- 
ful, and sentimental comedy received its quietus. Even Gar- 
rick, who had recently befriended it, now gave it a kick, as he 
saw it going down hill, and sent Goldsmith's humorous pro- 
logue to help his comedy of the opposite school. Garrick and 
Goldsmith, however, were now on very cordial terms, to which 
the social meetings in the circle of the Hornecks and Bunburys 
may have contributed. 

On the 15th of March the new comedy was to be performed. 
Those who had stood up for its merits, and been irritated and 
disgusted by the treatment it had received from the manager, 
determined to muster their forces, and aid in giving it a good 
launch upon the town. The particulars of this confederation, 
and its triumphant success, are amusingly told by Cumberland 
in his memoirs. 

"We were not over sanguine of success, but perfectly de- 
termined to struggle hard for our author. We accordingly 
assembled our strength at the Shakespeare tavern, in a con- 
siderable body, for an early dinner, where Samuel Johnson 
took the chair at the head of a long table, and was the life and 
soul of the corps : the poet took post silently by his side, with 
the Burkes, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Fitzherbert, Caleb White- 
foord, and a phalanx of North British, predetermined applaud- 
ers, under the banner of Major Mills, all good men and true. 
Our illustrious president was in inimitable glee; and poor 
Goldsmith that day took all his raillery as patiently and com- 
placently as my friend Boswell would have done any day or 
every day of his life. In the meantime, we did not forget our 
duty; and though we had a better comedy going, in which 
Johnson was chief actor, we betook ourselves in good time to 
our separate and allotted posts, and waited the awful drawing 
up of the curtain. As our stations were preconcerted, so were 
our signals for plaudits arranged and determined upon in a 
manner that gave every one his cue where to look for them, 
and how to follow them up. 

' ' We had among us a very worthy and efficient member, 
long since lost to his friends and the world at large, Adam 
Drummond, of amiable memory, who was gifted by nature 
with the most sonorous, and at the same time, the most con- 
tagious laugh that ever echoed from the human lungs. The 



OUVEU tiOWSMlTlt 213 

neighing of the horse of the son of Hystaspes ^^J%£ 
tt^towhole thunder of the theatre could not drown it. This 
^XS^ f ricmd **# ^warned us that he knew 
kind ana.ingeiuu cannon did that was 

iu eveswere upon Johnson, who sat in a front row of a ode 
to and when \e laughed, everybody thought themselv^ 
Granted to roar. In the meantime, my friend followed 
SSwith a rattle so irresistibly comic that, when he had 

^^tVZSt £ S ^ed^my^ifl 
Xrehe?ound mo^and now, unluckily, he fancied tha 
be found aToke in almost everything that was said; so that 
he ,r 4 . a HZve could be more mal-apropos than some of 
bis bufsts^ry noTand then were. These were dang = 
moments for the pit began to take umbrage; but we carriea 
oTpSnt tirough P and triumphed not only over Colmans 

^luTcf «tem*nt has been condemned as exaggerated 
or Reeled. Cumberland's memoirs have »T^J^ 
characterized as partaking of romance, and m the present m 
stance he had particular motives for tampering w lt h the tru tK 
He was a dramatic writer himself, jealous of the success 01* 
rival andtnSous to have it attributed to the private manage- 
ment "friends. According to various accounts public and 
private, such management was unnecessary, for the V ece was 
« received throughout with the greatest acclamation^ 

Goldsmith in the present instance, had not dared, as on a 
forget o^asion, to be present at the first Pert™* £■ 
had been so overcome by his apprehensions that, at the pre 
paratory dmner he could hardly utter a word and was *, 
choked that he could not swallow a mouthful. When .Jm 
frtenda trooped to the theatre, he stole away to St. James 
Park therhe was found by a friend between seven and eight 



214 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



o'clock, wandering up and down the Mall like a troubled spirit. 
With difficulty he was persuaded to go to the theatre, where 
his presence might be important should any alteration be 
necessary. He arrived at the opening of the fifth act, and 
made his way behind the scenes. Just as he entered there was 
a slight hiss at the improbability of Tony Lumpkin's trick on 
his mother, in persuading her she was forty miles off, on Crack- 
skull Common, though she had been trundled about on her 
own grounds. "What's. that? what's that!" cried Goldsmith 
to the manager, in great agitation. "Pshaw ! Doctor," replied 
Colman, sarcastically, "don't be frightened at a squib, when 
we've been sitting these two hours on a barrel of gunpowder!" 
Though of a most forgiving nature Goldsmith did not easily 
forget this ungracious and ill-timed sally. 

If Colman was indeed actuated by the paltry motives as- 
scribed to him in his treatment of this play, he was most am- 
ply punished by its success, and by the taunts, epigrams, and 
censures levelled at him through the press, in which his false 
prophecies were jeered at; his critical judgment called in ques- 
tion: and he was openly taxed with literary jealousy. So 
galling and unremitting was the fire, that he at length wrote 
to Goldsmith, entreating him "to take him off the rack of the 
newspapers;" in the meantime, to escape the laugh that was 
raised about him in the theatrical world of London, he took 
refuge in Bath during the triumphant career of the comedy.; 

The following is one of the many squibs which assailed the 
ears of the manager: 

To George Colman, Esq. 

ON THE SUCCESS OP DR. GOLDSMITH'S NEW COMEDY. 

" Come. Cdley, doff those mourning weeds, 
Nor thus with jokes be flamm'd; 
Tho' Goldsmith's present play succeeds, 
His next may still be damm'd. 

As this has 'scaped without a fall, 

To sink his next prepare; 
New actors hire from Wapping Wall, 

And dresses from Rag Fair. 

For scenes let tatter'd blankets fly, 

The prologue Kelly write; 
Then swear again the piece must die 

Before the author's night. 

Should these tricks fail, the lucky elf, 

To bring to lasting shame, 
E'en write the best you can yourself, 

Aud print it in his name." 






OLIVER GOLDSMim. 215 

The solitary hiss, which had startled Goldsmith, was as- 
cribed by some of the newspaper scribblers to Cumberland 
himself, who was "manifestly miserable" at the delight of the 
audience, or to Ossian Macpherson, who was hostile to the 
whole Johnson clique, or to Goldsmith's dramatic rival, Kelly. 
The following is one of the epigrams which appeared : 

" At Dr. Goldsmith's merry play, 
All the spectators laugh, they say: 
The assertion, sir, I must deny, 
For Cumberland and Kelly cry. 

Bide, si sapis." 

Another, addressed to Goldsmith, alludes to Kelly's early 
apprenticeship to stay-making : 

" If Kelly finds fault with the shape of your muse, 
And thinks that too loosely it plays, 
He surely, dear Doctor, will never refuse 
To make it a new Pair of Stays /" 

Cradock had returned to the country before the production 
of the play; the following letter, written just after the per- 
formance, gives an additional picture of the thorns which be- 
set an author in the path of theatrical literature : 

" My dear Sir: The play has met with a success much be- 
yond your expectations or mine. I thank you sincerely for 
your epilogue, which, however, could not be used, but with 
your permission shall be printed. The story in short is this. 
Murphy sent me rather the outline of an epilogue than an 
epilogue, which was to be sung by Miss Catley, and which she 
approved ; Mrs. Bulkley hearing this, insisted on throwing up 
her part" (Miss Hardcastle) "unless, according to the custom 
of the theatre she were permitted to speak the epilogue. In 
this embarrassment I thought of making a quarrelling epilogue 
between Catley and her, debating who should speak the 
epilogue ; but then Mrs. Catley refused after I had taken the 
trouble of drawing it out. I was then at a loss indeed; an 
epilogue was to be made, and for none but Mrs. Bulkley. I 
made one, and Colman thought it too bad to be spoken : I was 
obliged, therefore, to try a fourth time, and I made a very 
mawkish thing, as you'll shortly see. Such is the history of 
my stage adventures, and which I have at last done with. I 
cannot help saying that I am very sick of the stage; and 
though I believe I shall get three tolerable benefits, yet I shall, 
on the whole, be a loser, even in a pecuniary light; my ease 
and comfort I certainly lost while it was in agitation 



|jp OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

"I am, my dear Cradock, your obliged and obedient ser" 
vant, 

"Oliver Goldsmith. 
" P*S» Present my most bumble respects to Mrs. Cradock." 

Johnson, who bad taken such a conspicuous part in promot- 
ing the interests of poor " Goldy," was triumphant at the suc- 
cess of the piece. ' ' I know of no comedy for many years, " 
said he, ' ' that has so much exhilarated an audience ; that has 
answered so much the great end of comedy — making an au- 
dience merry." 

Goldsmith was happy, also, in gleaning applause from less 
authoritative sources. Northcote, the painter, then a youth- 
ful pupil of Sir Joshua Eeynolds ; and Ralph, Sir Joshua's con- 
fidential man, had taken their stations in the gallery to lead 
the applause in that quarter. Goldsmith asked Northcote's 
opinion of the play. The youth modestly declared he could 
not presume to judge in such matters. ' ' Did it make you 
laugh?" " Oh, exceedingly!" "That is all I require," replied 
Goldsmith ; and rewarded him for his criticism by box-tickets 
for his first benefit night. 

The comedy was immediately put to press, and dedicated to 
Johnson in the following grateful and affectionate terms : 

" In inscribing this slight performance to you, I do not mean 
so much to compliment you as myself. It may do me some 
honor to inform the public, that I have lived many years in 
intimacy with you. It may serve the interests of mankind 
also to inform them that the greatest wit may be found in a 
character, without impairing the most unaffected piety." 

The copyright was transferred to Mr. Newberry, according 
to agreement, whose profits on the sale of the work far ex- 
ceeded the debts for which the author in his perplexities had 
pre-engaged it. The sum which accrued to Goldsmith from his 
benefit nights afforded but a slight palliation of his pecuniary 
difficulties. His friends, while they exulted in his success, 
little knew of his continually increasing embarrassments, and 
of the anxiety of mind which kept tasking his pen while it im- 
paired the ease and freedom of spirit necessary to felicitous 
composition. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 211 



CHAPTEK XXXVII 

A NEWSPAPER ATTACK — THE EVANS AFFRAY— JOHNSON'S COM- 
MENT. 

The triumphant success of She Stoops to Conquer brought 
forth, of course, those carpings and cavillings of underling 
scribblers, which are the thorns and briers in the path of suc- 
cessful authors. 

Goldsmith, though easily nettled by attacks of the kind, 
was at present too well satisfied with the reception of his 
comedy to heed them; but the following anonymous letter, 
which appeared in a public paper, was not to be taken with 
equal equanimity : 

" For the London Packet. 
"to dr. goldsmith. 

1 l Vous vous noyez par vanite. 

"Sir: The happy knack which you have learned of puffing 
your own compositions, provokes me to come forth. You 
have not been the editor of newspapers and magazines not to 
discover the trick of literary humbug; but the gauze is so thin 
than the very foolish part of the world see through it, and dis- 
cover the doctor's monkey face and cloven foot. Your poetic 
vanity is as unpardonable as your personal. Would man be- 
lieve it, and will woman bear it, to be told that for hours the 
great Goldsmith will stand surveying his grotesque orang- 
outang's figure in a pier-glass ? Was but the lovely H-k as 
much enamored, you would not sigh, my gentle swain, in 
vain. But your vanity is preposterous. How will this same 
bard of Bedlam ring the changes in the praise of Goldy! 
But what has he to be either proud or vain of ? ' The Trav- 
eller ' is a flimsy poem, built upon false principles— principles 
•diametrically opposite to liberty. What is The Good-Natured 
Man but a poor, water-gruel dramatic dose ? What is ' The 
Deserted Village ' but a pretty poem of easy numbers, without 
fancy, dignity, genius, or fire ? And, pray, what may be the 
last speaking pantomime, so praised by the doctor himself, but 
an incoherent piece of stuff, the figure of a woman with a fish's 



218 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

tail, without plot, incident, or intrigue? We are made to 
laugh at stale', dull jokes, wherein we mistake pleasantry for 
wit, and grimace for humor.; wherein every scene is unnatural 
and inconsistent with the rules, the laws of nature and of the 
drama ; viz. , two gentlemen come to a man of fortune's house, 
eat, drink, etc., and take it for an inn. The one is intended 
as a lover for the daughter ; he talks with her for some hours ; 
and, when he sees her again in a different dress, he treats her 
as a bar-girl, and swears she squinted. He abuses the master 
of the house, and threatens to kick him out of his own doors. 
The squire, whom we are told is to be a fool, proves to be the 
most sensible being of the piece ; and he makes out a whole act 
by bidding his mother lie close behind a bush, persuading her 
that his father, her own husband, is a highwayman, and that 
he has come to cut their throats, and, to give his cousin an 
opportunity to go off, he drives his mother over hedges, 
ditches, and through ponds. There is not, sweet, sucking 
Johnson, a natural stroke in the whole play but the young 
fellow's giving the stolen jewels to the mother, supposing her 
to be the landlady. T n iat Mr. Colman did no justice to this 
piece, I honestly allow ; that he told all his friends it would be 
damned, I positively aver ; and, from such ungenerous insinu- 
ations, without a dramatic merit, it rose to public notice, and 
it is now the ton to go and see it, though I never saw a person 
that either liked it or approved it, any more than the absurd 
plo of Home's tragedy of Alonzo. Mr. Goldsmith, correct 
yoxxr arrogance, reduce your vanity, and endeavor to believe, 
as a man, you are of the plainest sort ; and as an author, but a 
mortal piece of mediocrity. 

" Brise le miroir infidele 
Qui vous cache la verite. 

" Tom Tickle." 

It would be difficult to devise a letter more calculated to 
wound the peculiar sensibilities of Goldsmith. The attacks 
upon him as an author, though annoying enough, he could 
have tolerated; but then the allusion to his ''grotesque" per- 
son, to his studious attempts to adorn it ; and above all, to his 
being an unsuccessful admirer of the lovely H — k (the Jessamy 
Bride), struck rudely upon the most sensitive part of his 
highly sensitive nature. The paragraph, it was said, was 
first pointed out to him by an officious friend, an Irishman, 
who told him he was bound in honor to resent it; but he 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 219 

needed no such prompting. He was in a high state of excite- 
ment and indignation, and accompanied by his friend, who is 
said to have been a Captain Higgins, of the marines, he re- 
paired to Paternoster Eow, to the shop of Evans, the pub- 
lisher, whom he supposed to be the editor of the paper. Evans 
was summoned by his shopman from an adjoining room. 
Goldsmith announced his name. "I have called," added he, 
' ' in consequence of a scurrilous attack made upon me, and an 
unwarrantable liberty taken with the name of a young lady. 
As for myself, I care little; but her name must not be sported 
with." 

Evans professed utter ignorance of the matter, and said he 
would speak to the editor. He stooped to examine a file of 
the paper, in search of the o ff ensive article ; whereupon Gold- 
smith's friend gave him a signal, that now was a favorable 
moment for the exercise of his cane. The hint was taken as 
quick as given, and the cane was vigorously applied to the 
back of the stooping publisher. The latter rallied in an in- 
stant, and, being a stout, high-blooded Welshman, returned 
the blows with interest. A. lamp hanging overhead was 
broken, and sent down a shower of oil upon the combatants ; 
but the battle Baged with unceasing fury. The shopman ran 
off for a constable ; but Dr. Kendrick, who happened to be in 
the adjacent room, sallied forth, interfered between the com- 
batants, and put an end to the affray. He conducted Gold- 
smith to a coach, in exceedingly battered and tapered plight, 
and accompanied him home, soothing him with much mock 
commiseration, though he was generally suspected, and on 
good grounds, to be the author of the libel. 

Evans immediately instituted a suit against Goldsmith for 
an assault, but was ultimately prevailed upon to compromise 
the matter, the poet contributing fifty pounds to the Welsh 
charity. 

Newspapers made themselves, as may well be supposed, ex- 
ceedingly merry with the combat. Some censured him severely 
for invading the sanctity of a man's own house ; others accused 
him of having, in his former capacity of editor of a maga- 
zine, been guilty of the very offences that he now resented in 
others. This drew from him the following vindication: 

"To the Public. 

"Lest it should be supposed that I have been willing to 
correct in others an abuse of which I have been guilty myself, 



220 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

I beg leave to declare, that, in all my life, I never wrote or 
dictated a single paragraph, letter, or essay in a newspaper, 
except a few moral essays under the character of a Chinese, 
about ten years ago, in the Ledger, and a letter, to which I 
signed my name in the St. James'' Chronicle. If the liberty of 
the press, therefore, has been abused, I have had no hand in it. 

"I have always considered the press as the protector of our 
freedom, as a watchful guardian, capable of uniting the weak 
against the encroachments of power. Whakconcerns the pub- 
lic most properly admits of a public discussion. But, of late, 
the press has turned from defending public interest to making 
inroads upon private life ; from combating the strong to over- 
whelming the teeble. No condition is now too obscure for its 
abuse, and the protestor has become the tyrant of the people. 
In this manner the freedom of the press is beginning to sow 
the seeds of its own dissolution ; the great must oppose it from 
principle, and the weak from fear ; till at last every rank of 
mankind shall be found to give up its benefits, content with 
security from insults. 

"How to put a stop to this licentiousness, by which all are 
indiscriminately abused, and by which vice consequently es- 
capes in the general censure, I am unable to tell ; all I could 
wish is that, as the law gives us no protection against the 
injury, so it should give caluminators no shelter after having 
provoked correction. The insults which we receive before the 
public, by being more open, are the more distressing; by 
treating them with silent contempt we do not pay a sufficient 
deference to the opinion of the world. By recurring to legal 
redress we too often expose the weakness of the law, which 
only serves to increase our mortification by failing to relieve 
us. In short, every man should singly consider himself as the 
guardian of the liberty of the press, and, as far as his influence 
can extend, should endeavor to prevent its licentiousness be- 
coming at last the grave of its freedom. 

"Oliver Goldsmith." 

Boswell, who had just arrived in town, met with this article 
in a newspaper which he found at Dr. Johnson's. The doctor 
was from home at the time, and Bozzy and Mrs. Williams, in 
a critical conference over the letter, determined from the style 
that it must have been written by the lexicographer himself. 
The latter on his return soon undeceived them. " Sir," said he 
to Boswell, " Goldsmith would no more have askccl me to h t ave 



'OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 221 

Wrote such a thing as that for him, than he would have asked 
me to feed him with a spoon, or do anything else that denoted 
his imbecility. Sir, had he shown it to any one friend, he 
would not have been allowed to publish it. He has, indeed, 
done it very well; but it is a foolish thing well done. I sup- 
pose he has been so much elated with the success of his new 
comedy, that he has thought everything that concerned him 
must be of importance to the public." 



CHAPTER XXXIX, 

B6SWELL IN HOLY WEEK— DINNER AT OGLETHORPE^— DINNEB 
AT PAOLI'S— THE POLICY OF TRUTH— GOLDSMITH AFFECTS IN- 
DEPENDENCE OF ROYALTY— PAOLI'S COMPLIMENT— JOHNSON'S 
EULOGIUM ON THE FIDDLE— QUESTION ABOUT SUICIDE— BOS- 
WELL'S SUBSERVIENCY. 

The return of Boswell to town to his task of noting down 
the conversations of Johnson enables us to glean from his 
journal some scanty notices of Goldsmith. It was now Holy 
Week, a time during which Johnson was particularly solemn 
in his manner and strict in his devotions. Boswell, who was 
the imitator of the great moralist in everything, assumed, of 
course, an extra devoutness on the present occasion. "He had 
;an odd mock solemnity of tone and manner," said Miss Burney 
(afterward Madame D'Arblay), " which he had acquired from 
- constantly thinking and imitating Dr. Johnson. ' ' It would seem 
that he undertook to deal out some second-hand homilies, a la 
. Johnson, for the edification of Goldsmith during Holy Week. 
1 The poet, whatever might be his religious feeling, had no dis- 
position to be schooled by so shallow an apostle. "Sir," said 
he in reply, " as I take my shoes from the shoemaker, and my 
coat from the tailor, so I take my religion from the priest." 

Boswell treasured up the reply in his memory or his memo- 
randum book. A few days afterward, the Oth of April, he 
kept Good Friday with Dr. Johnson, in orthodox style ; break- 
fasted with him on tea and crossbuns ; went to church with 
him morning and evening; fasted in the interval, and read 
with him in the Greek Testament: then, in the piety of his 
heart, complained of the sore rebuff he had met with in the 



222 OLIVER GO LI) SMITH. 

course of his religious exhortations to the poet, and lamented 
that the latter should indulge in "this loose way of talking." 
"Sir," replied Johnson, "Goldsmith knows nothing— he. has 
made up his mind about nothing. " 

This reply seems to have gratified the lurking jealousy of 
Bos well, and he has recorded it in his journal. Johnson, how- 
ever, with respect to Goldsmith, and indeed with respect to 
everybody else, blew hot as well as cold, according to the hu- 
mor he was in. Boswell, who was astonished and piqued at 
the continually increasing celebrity of the poet, observed some 
time after to Johnson, in a tone«of surprise, that Goldsmith had 
acquired more fame than all the officers of the last war who 
were not generals. "Why, sir," answered Johnson, his old 
feeling of good- will working uppermost, "you will find ten 
thousand fit to do what they did, before you find one to do 
what Goldsmith has done. You must consider that a thing is 
valued according to its rarity. A pebble that paves the street 
is in itself more useful than the diamond upon a lady's finger." 

On the 13th of April we find Goldsmith and Johnson at the 
table of old General Oglethorpe, discussing the question of the 
degeneracy of the human race. Goldsmith asserts the fact, 
and attributes it to the influence of luxury. Johnson denies 
the fact ; and observes that, even admitting it, luxury could 
not be the cause. It reached but a small proportion of 
the human race. Soldiers, on sixpence a day, could not in- 
dulge in luxuries; the poor and laboring classes, forming the 
great mass of mankind, were out of its sphere. Wherever it 
could reach them, it strengthened them and rendered them 
prolific. The conversation was not of particular force or point 
as reported by Boswell; the dinner party was a very small 
one, in which there was no provocation to intellectual display. 

After dinner they took tea with the ladies, where we find 
poor Goldsmith happy and at home, singing Tony Lumpkin's 
song of the "Three Jolly Pigeons," and another, called the 
" Humors of Ballamaguery, " to a very pretty Irish tune. It 
was to have been introduced in She Stoops to Conquer, but was 
left out, as the actress who played the heroine could not sing. 

It was in these genial moments that the sunshine of Gold- 
smith's nature would break out, and he would say and do a 
thousand whimsical and agreeable things that made him the 
life of the strictly social circle. Johnson, with whom conver- 
sation was everything, used to judge Goldsmith too much by 
his own colloquial standard, and undervalue him for being less 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 223 

provided than himself with acquired facts, the ammunition of 
the tongue and often the mere lumber of the memory; others, 
however, valued him for the native felicity of his thoughts, 
however carelessly expressed, and for certain good-fellow 
qualities, less calculated to dazzle than to endear. " It is amaz- 
ing," said Johnson one day, after he himself had been talking 
like an oracle ; " it is amazing how little Goldsmith knows; he 
seldom comes where he is not more ignorant than anyone 
else." "Yet," replied Sir Joshua Reynolds, with aifectionate 
promptness, " there is no man whose company is more MJced." 
Two or three days after the dinner at General Oglethorpe's, 
Goldsmith met Johnson again at the table of General Paoli, 
the hero of Corsica. Martinelli, of Florence, author of an 
Italian History of England, was among the guests; as was 
Boswell, to whom we are indebted for minutes of the conversa- 
tion which took place. The question was debated whether 
Martinelli should continue his history down to that day. ' ' To 
be sure he should, " said Goldsmith. ' ' No, sir ;" cried Johnson, 
"it would give great offence. He would have to tell of almost 
all the living great what they did not wish told." Goldsmith. 
—"It may, perhaps, be necessary for a native to be more cau- 
tious ; but a foreigner, who comes among us without prejudice, 
may be considered as holding the place of a judge, and may 
speak his mind freely." Johnson.—" Sir, a foreigner, when he 
sends a work from the press, ought to be on his guard against 
catching the error and mistaken enthusiasm of the people 
among whom he happens to be." Goldsmith.—' ' Sir, he wants 
only to sell his history, and to tell truth; one an honest, the 
other a laudable motive." Johnson.— " Sir, they are both 
laudable motives. It is laudable in a man to wish to live by 
his labors ; but he should write so as he may live by them, not 
so as he may be knocked on the head. I would advise him to 
be at Calais before he publishes his history of the present age. 
A foreigner who attaches himself to a political party in this 
country is in the worst state that can be imagined ; he is looked 
upon as a mere intermeddler. A native may do it from inter- 
est." Boswell.— "Or principle." Goldsmith.— "There are 
people who tell a hundred political lies every day, and are not 
hurt by it. Surely, then, one may tell truth with perfect 
safety." Johnson.— " Why, sir, in the first place, he who tells 
a hundred lies has disarmed the force of his lies. But, besides, 
a man had rather have a hundred lies told of him than one 
$ruth which he does not wish to be told." Goldsmith.—" For 



224 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

my part, I'd tell the truth, and shame the devil." Johnson. — 
"Yes, sir, but the devil will be angry. I wish to shame the 
devil as much as you do, but I should choose to be out of the 
reach of his claws." Goldsmith. — " His claws can do you no 
hurt where you have the shield of truth." 

This last reply was one of Goldsmith's lucky hits, and closed 
the argument in his favor. 

"We talked," writes Bos well, " of the king's coming to see 
Goldsmith's new play." "I wish he would," said Goldsmith, 
adding, however, with an affected indifference, ' ' Not that it 
would do me the least good." " Well, then," cried Johnson, 
laughing, " let us say it would do him good. No, sir, this affec- 
tation will not pass ; it is mighty idle. In such a state as ours, 
who would not wish to please the chief magistrate?" 

" I do wish to please him," rejoined Goldsmith. " I remem- 
ber a line in Dry den : 

' And every poet is the monarch's friend,' 

it ought to be reversed." "Nay," said Johnson, "there are 
finer lines in Dryden on this subject : 

' For colleges on bounteous kings depend, 
And never rebel was to arts a friend.' " 

General Paoli observed that "successful rebels might be." 
"Happy rebellions," interjected Martinelli. "We have no 
such phrase, " cried Goldsmith. ' ' But have you not the thing?" 
asked Paoli. " Yes," replied Goldsmith, "all our happy revo- 
lutions. They have hurt our constitution, and will hurt it, till 
we mend it by another happy revolution. " This was a sturdy 
sally of Jacobitism that quite surprised Boswell, but must have 
been relished by Johnson. 

General Paoli mentioned a passage in the play, which had 
been construed into a compliment to a lady of distinction, 
whose marriage with the Duke of Cumberland had excited the 
strong disapprobation of the king as a mesaillance. Boswell, 
to draw Goldsmith out, pretended to think the compliment 
unintentional. The poet smiled and hesitated. The general 
came to his relief. "Monsieur Goldsmith," said he, "est 
comme la mer, qui jette des perles et beaucoup d'autres belles 
choses, sans s'en appercevoir" (Mr. Goldsmith is like the sea, 
which casts forth pearls and many other beautiful things with- 
out perceiving it). 

^'Tres-bien dit, et tres-elegamment" (very well said, and 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH £25 

Very elegantly), exclaimed Goldsmith; delighted with so beau- 
tiful a compliment from such a quarter. 

Johnson spoke disparagingly of the learning of a Mr. Harris^ 
of Salisbury, and doubted his being a good Grecian. " He 
is what is much better," cried Goldsmith, with prompt good- 
nature, "he is a worthy, humane man." " Nay, sir," rejoined 
the logical Johnson, " that is not to the purpose of -our argu- 
ment ; that will prove that he can play upon the fiddle as well 
as Giardini, as that he is an eminent Grecian." Goldsmith 
found he had got into a scrape, and seized upon Giardini to 
help him out of it. "The greatest musical performers," said 
he, dexterously turning the conversation, "have but small 
emoluments; Giardini, I am told, does not get above seven 
hundred a year." " That is indeed but little for a man to get," 
observed Johnson, " who does best that which so many endea- 
vor to do. There is nothing, I think, in which the power of 
art is shown so much as in playing on the fiddle. In all other 
things we can do something at first. Any man will forge a 
bar of iron, if you give him a hammer ; not so well as a smith, 
but tolerably. A man will saw a piece of wood, and make a 
box, though a clumsy one ; but give him a fiddle and fiddlestick, 
and he can do nothing." 

This, upon the whole, though reported by the one-sided Bos- 
well, is a tolerable specimen of the conversations of Goldsmith 
and Johnson; the former heedless, often illogical, always on 
the kind-hearted side of the question, and prone to redeem him- 
self by lucky hits ; the latter closely argumentative, studiously 
sententious, often profound, and sometimes laboriously pro- 
saic. 

They had an argument a few days later at Mr. Thrale's table, 
on the subject of suicide. "Do you think, sir," said Boswell, 
"that all who commit suicide are mad?" " Sir," replied John- 
son, "they are not often universally disordered in their intel- 
lects, but one passion presses so upon them that they yield to 
it, and commit suicide, as a passionate man will stab another. 
I have often thought," added he, "that after a man has taken 
the resolution to kill himself, it is not courage in him to do 
anything, however desperate, because he has nothing to fear." 
"I don't see that," observed Goldsmith. "Nay, but, my dear 
sir," rejoined Johnson, "why should you not see what every 
one else does?" "It is," replied Goldsmith, "for fear of some- 
thing that he has resolved to kill himself ; and will not that 
timid disposition restrain him?" "It does not signify," pur- 



226 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

sued Johnson, "that the fear of something made him resolve; 
it is upon the state of his mind, after the resolution is taken, 
that I argue. Suppose a man either from fear, or pride, or 
conscience, or whatever motive, has resolved to kill himself ; 
when once the resolution is taken he has nothing to fear. He 
may then go and take the King of Prussia by the nose at the 
head of his army. He cannot fear the rack who is determined 
to kill himself. " Boswell reports no more of the discussion, 
though Goldsmith might have continued it with advantage : 
for the very timid disposition, which through fear of some- 
thing, was impelling the man to commit suicide, might restrain 
him from an act, involving the punishment of the rack, more 
terrible to him than death itself. 

It is to be regretted in all these reports by Boswell, we have 
scarcely anything but the remarks of Johnson ; it is only by 
accident that he now and then gives us the observations of 
others, when they are necessary to explain or set off those of 
his hero. "When in that -presence" says Miss Burney, "he 
was unobservant, if not contemptuous of every one else. In 
truth, when he met with Dr. Johnson, he commonly forbore 
even answering anything that was said, or attending to any- 
thing that went forward, lest he should miss the smallest sound 
from that voice, to which he paid such exclusive, though mer- 
ited homage. But the moment that voice burst forth, the atten- 
tion which it excited on Mr. Boswell amounted almost to pain. 
His eyes goggled with eagerness ; he leaned his ear almost on 
the shoulder of the doctor; and his mouth dropped open to 
catch every syllable that might be uttered; nay, he seemed 
not only to dread losing a word, but to be anxious not to miss 
a breathing; as if hoping from it latently, or mystically, some 
information." 

On one occasion the Doctor detected Boswell, or Bozzy, as 
he called him, eavesdropping behind his chair, as he was con- 
versing with Miss Burney at Mr. Thrale's table. "What are 
you doing there, sir?" cried he, turning round angrily, and 
clapping his hand upon his knee. "Go to the table, sir." 

Boswell obeyed with an air of affright and submission, which 
raised a smile on every face. Scarce had he taken his seat, 
however, at a distance, than impatient to get again at the side 
of Johnson, he rose and was running off in quest of something 
to show him, when the doctor roared after him authoritatively, 
" What are you thinking of, sir? Why do you get up before 
the cloth is removed? Come back to youy place, sir;" — and 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 227 

the obsequious spaniel did as he was commanded. " Running 
about in the middle of meals !" muttered the doctor, pursing 
his mouth at the same time to restrain his rising risibility. 

Boswell got another rebuff from Johnson, which would have 
demolished any other man. He had been teasing him with 
many direct questions, such as What did you do, sir? What 
did you say, sir? until the great philologist became perfectly 
enraged. U I will not be put to the question!' 1 '' roared he. 
"Don't you consider, sir, that these are not the manners of a 
gentleman? I will not be baited with what and why; What is 
this? What is that? Why is a cow's tail long? Why is a fox's 
tail bushy?" "Why, sir," replied pil-garlick, "you are so 
good that I venture to trouble you." " Sir," replied Johnson, 
"my being so good is no reason why you should be so ill" 
"You have but two topics, sir;" exclaimed he on another oc- 
casion, "yourself and me, and I am sick of both," 

Boswell's inveterate disposition to toad was a sore cause of 
mortification to his father, the old laird of Auchinleck (or Af- 
fleck). He had been annoyed by his extravagant devotion to 
Paoli, but then he was something of a military hero; but this 
tagging at the heels of Dr. Johnson, whom he considered a 
kind of pedagogue, set his Scotch blood in a ferment. " There's 
nae hope for Jamie, mon, " said he to a friend ; ' ' Jamie is gaen 
clean gyte. What do you think, mon? He's done wi' Faoli; 
he's off wi' the land-louping scoundrel of a Corsican ; and whose 
tail do you think he has pinn'd himself to now, mon? A do- 
minie, mon; an auld dominie: he keeped a schule, and cau'd 
it an acaadamy." 

We shall show in the next chapter that Jamie's devotion to 
the dominie did not go unrewarded. 



CHAPTER XL. 



CHANGES IN THE LITERARY CLUB — JOHNSON'S OBJECTION TO GAR- 
RICK — ELECTION OF BOSWELL. 

The Literary Club (as we have termed the club in Gerard 
Street, though it took that name some time later) had now 
being in existence several years. Johnson was exceedingly 
chary at first of its exclusiveness, and opposed to its being 
augmented in number. Not long after its institution, Sir 



228 0L1VEB GOLDSMITH. 

Joshua Keynolds was speaking of it to Garrick. "I like it 
much," said little David, briskly; " I think I shall be of you." 
" When Sir Joshua mentioned this to Dr. Johnson," says Bos- 
well, "he was much displeased with the actor's conceit. 
* He'll be of us ?■' growled he. 'How does he know we will 
permit him? The first duke in England has no right to hold 
such language.'" 

When Sir John Hawkins spoke favorably of Garrick's pre- 
tensions, "Sir," replied Johnson, "he will disturb us by his 
buffoonery." In the same spirit he declared to Mr. Thrale, 
that if Garrick should apply for admission, he would black-ball 
him. "Who, sir?" exclaimed Thrale, with surprise; " Mr. Gar- 
rick — your friend, your companion — black-ball him !" "Why, 
sir," replied Johnson, "I love my little David dearly— better 
than all or any of his flatterers do; but surely one ought to sit 
in a society like ours, 

" 'Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or player.' " 

The exclusion from the club was a sore mortification to Gar- 
rick. though he bore it without complaining. He could not 
help continually to ask questions about it — what was going on 
there — whether he was ever the subject of conversation. By 
degrees the rigor of the club relaxed: some of the members 
grew negligent. Beauclerc lost his right of membership by 
neglecting to attend. On his marriage, however, with Lady 
Diana Spencer, daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, and 
recently divorced from Viscount Bolingbroke, he had claimed 
and regained his seat in the club. The number of members 
had likewise been augmented. The proposition to increase it- 
originated with Goldsmith. "It would give," he thought, "an 
agreeable variety to their meetings ; for there can be nothing 
new among us," said he; " we have travelled over each other's 
minds." Johnson was piqued at the suggestion. "Sir," said 
he, "you have not travelled over my mind, I promise you." 
Sir Joshua, less confident in the exhaustless fecundity of his 
mind, felt and acknowledged the force of Goldsmith's suggest- 
ion. Several new members, therefore, had been added; the 
first, to his great joy, was David Garrick. Goldsmith, who 
was now on cordial terms with him, had zealously promoted 
his election, and Johnson had given it his warm approbation. 
Another new member was Beauclerc's friend, Lord Charle- 
mont; and a still more important one was Mr., afterward Sir 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 229 

William Jones, the famous Orientalist, at that time a young 
lawyer of the Temple and a distinguished scholar. 

To the great astonishment of the club, Johnson now proposed 
his devoted follower, Boswell, as a member. He did it in a 
note addressed to Goldsmith, who presided on the evening of 
the 23d of April. The nomination was seconded by Beauclerc. 
According to the rules of the club, the ballot would take place 
at the next meeting (on the 30th) ; there was an intervening 
week, therefore, in which to discuss the pretensions of the can- 
didate. We may easily imagine the discussions that took 
place. Boswell had made himself absurd in such a variety of 
ways, that the very idea of his admission was exceedingly irk- 
some to some of the members. ''The honor of being elected 
into the Turk's Head Club, " said the Bishop of St. Asaph, ' ' is 
not inferior to that of being representative of Westminster and 
Surrey;" what had Boswell done to merit such an honor? what 
chance had he of gaining it? The answer was simple: he had 
been the persevering worshipper, if not sycophant of Johnson. 
The great lexicographer had a heart to be won by apparent af- 
fection; he stood forth authoritatively in support of his vassal. 
If asked to state the merits of the candidate, he summed them 
up in an indefinite but comprehensive word of his own coining ; 
he was clubahle. He moreover gave significant hints that if 
Boswell were kept out he should oppose the admission of any 
other candidate. No further opposition was made; in fact 
none of the members had been so fastidious and exclusive in 
regard to the club as Johnson himself ; and if he were pleased, 
they were easily satisfied ; besides, they knew that with all his 
faults, Boswell was a cheerful companion, and possessed lively 
social qualities. 

On Friday, when the ballot was to take place, Beauclerc 
gave a dinner, at his house in the Adelphi, where Boswell met 
several of the members who were favorable to his election. 
After dinner the latter adjourned to the club, leaving Boswell 
in company with Lady Di Beauclerc until the fate of his elect- 
ion should be known. He sat, he says, in a state of anxiety 
which even the charming conversation of Lady Di could not 
entirely dissipate. It was not long before tidings were brought 
of his election, and he was conducted to the place of meeting, 
where, beside the company he had met at dinner, Burke, Dr. 
Nugent, Garrick, Goldsmith, and Mr. William Jones were 
waiting to receive him. The club, notwithstanding all its 
learned dignity in the eyes of the world, could at times "un-, 



230 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

bend and play the fool" as well as less important bodies. 
Some of its jocose conversations have at times leaked out, and 
a society in which Goldsmith could venture to sing his song of 
" an old woman tossed in a blanket," could not be so very staid 
in its gravity. We may suppose, therefore, the jokes that had 
been passing among the members while awaiting the arrival of 
Boswell. Beauclerc himself could not have repressed his dis- 
position for a sarcastic pleasantry. At least we have a right to 
presume all this from the conduct of Dr. Johnson himself. 

With all his gravity he possessed a deep fund of quiet hu- 
mor, and felt a kind of whimsical responsibility to protect the 
club from the absurd propensities of the very questionable 
associate he had thus inflicted on them. Rising, therefore, as 
Boswell entered, he advanced with a very doctorial air, placed 
himself behind a chair, on which he leaned as on a desk or pul- 
pit, and then delivered, ex cathedra, a mock solemn charge, 
pointing out the conduct expected from him as a good member 
of the club ; what he was to do, and especially what he was to 
avoid; including in the latter, no doubt, all those petty, pry- 
ing, questioning, gossiping, babbling habits which had so often 
grieved the spirit of the lexicographer. It is to be regretted 
that Boswell has never thought proper to note down the par- 
1 Jars of this charge, which, from the well known characters 
and positions of the parties, might have furnished a parallel to 
the noted charge of Launcelot Gobbo to his dog. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

DINNER AT DILLY'S— CONVERSATIONS ON NATURAL HISTORY— IN- 
TERMEDDLING OF BOSWELL — DISPUTE ABOUT TOLERATION — 
JOHNSON'S REBUFF TO GOLDSMITH— HIS APOLOGY — MAN-WOR- 
SHIP — DOCTORS MAJOR AND MINOR — A FAREWELL VISIT. 

A few days after the serio-comic scene of the elevation of 
Boswell into the Literary Club, we find that indefatigable 
biographer giving particulars of a dinner at the Dillys, book- 
sellers, in the Poultry, at which he met Goldsmith and John- 
son, with several other literary characters. His anecdotes of 
the conversation, of course, go to glorify Dr. Johnson ; for, as 
he observes in his biography, "his conversation alone, or what 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 231 

led to it, or was interwoven with it, is the business of this 
work." Still on the present, as on other occasions, he gives 
unintentional and perhaps unavoidable gleams of Goldsmith's \ 
good sense, which show that the latter only wanted a less pre- 
judiced and more impartial reporter, to put down the charge of 
colloquial incapacity so unjustly fixed upon him. The conver- 
sation turned upon the natural history of birds, a beautiful 
subject, on which the poet, from his recent studies, his habits 
of observation, and his natural tastes, must have talked with 
instruction and feeling; yet, though we have much of what 
Johnson said, we have only a casual remark or two of Gold- 
smith. One was on the migration of swallows, which he pro- 
nounced partial; "The stronger ones," said he, "migrate, the 
others do not." 

Johnson denied to the brute creation the faculty of reason. 
"Birds," said he, "build by instinct; they never improve; 
they build their first nest as well as any one they ever build." 
"Yet we see," observed Goldsmith, " if you take away a bird's 
nest with the eggs in it, she will make a slighter nest and lay 
again." " Sir'" replied Johnson, "that is because at first she 
has full time, and makes her nest deliberately. In the case 
you mention, she is pressed to lay, and must, therefore, mak' 
her nest quickly, and consequently it will be slight." "The 
nidification of birds," rejoined Goldsmith, "is what is least 
known in natural history, though one of the most curious 
things in it." While conversation was going on in this placid, 
agreeable and instructive manner, the eternal meddler and 
busy-body Boswell, must intrude, to put it in a brawl. The 
Dillys were dissenters ; two of their guests were dissenting 
clergymen; another, Mr. Toplady, was a clergyman of the . 
established church. Johnson, himself, was a zealous, uncom- 
promising churchman. None but a marplot like Boswell would 
have thought, on such an occasion, and in such company, to 
broach the subject of religious toleration; but, as has been 
well observed, "it was his perverse inclination to introduce 
subjects that he hoped would produce difference and debate." 
In this present instance he gained his point. An animated 
dispute immediately arose, in which, according to Boswell's 
report, Johnson monopolized the greater part of the conversa- 
tion ; not always treating the dissenting clergymen with the 
greatest courtesy, and even once wounding the feelings of the 
mild and amiable Bennet Langton by his harshness. 

Goldsmith mingled a little in the dispute and with some g»4« 



< 1 

232 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

vantage, but was cut short by flat contradictions when most 
in the right. He sat for a time silent but impatient under 
such overbearing dogmatism, though Bos well, with his usual 
misinterpretation, attributes his " restless agitation" to a wish 
to get in and shine. "Finding himself excluded," continues 
Boswell, " he had taken his hat to go away, but remained for a 
time with it in his hand, like a gamester, who, at the end of a 
long night, lingers for a little while to see if he can have a 
favorable opportunity to finish with success." Once he was 
beginning to speak when he was overpowered by the loud 
voice of Johnson, who was at the opposite end of the table, and 
did not perceive his attempt ; whereupon he threw down, as it 
were, his hat and his argument, and, darting an angry glance 
at Johnson, exclaimed in a bitter tone, " Take it." 

Just then one of the disputants was beginning to speak, 
when Johnson uttering some sound, as if about to interrupt 
him, Goldsmith, according to Boswell, seized the opportunity 
to vent his own envy and spleen under pretext of supporting 
another person. "Sir," said he to Johnson, " the gentleman 
has heard you patiently for an hour; pray allow us now to 
hear him." It was a reproof in the lexicographer's own style, 
and he may have felt that he merited it; but he was not 
accustomed to be reproved. "Sir," said he, sternly, "I was 
not interrupting the gentleman; I was only giving him a 
signal of my attention. Sir, you are impertinent." Goldsmith 
made no reply, but after some time .went away, having an- 
other engagement. 

That evening, as Boswell was on the way with Johnson and 
Langton to the club, he seized the occasion to make some dis- 
paraging remarks on Goldsmith, which he thought would just 
then be acceptable to the great lexicographer. "It was a 
pity," he said, "that Goldsmith would, on every occasion, 
endeavor to shine, by which he so often exposed himself. '* 
Langton contrasted him with Addison, who, content with the 
fame of his writings, acknowledged himself unfit for conversa- 
tion ; and on being taxed by a lady with silence in company, 
replied, " Madam, I have but nine pence in ready money, but 
I can draw for a thousand pounds." To this Boswell rejoined 
that Goldsmith had a great deal of gold in his cabinet, but was 
always taking out his purse. "Yes, sir," chuckled Johnson, 
" and that so often an empty purse." 

By this time Johnson arrived at the club ? however, his angry 
feelings had subsided, and his native generosity and sense of 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. ggg 

justice had got the uppermost. He found Goldsmith in com- 
pany with Burke, Garrick, and other members, but sitting 
silent and apart, "brooding," as Boswell says, "over the 
reprimand he had received." Johnson's good heart yearned to- 
ward him; and knowing his placable nature, " I'll make Gold- 
smith forgive me," whispered he; then, with a loud voice, 
"Dr. Goldsmith," said he, "something passed to-day where 
you and I dined— I ash your pardon" The ire of the poet was 
extinguished in an instant, and his grateful affection for the 
magnanimous though sometimes overbearing moralist rushed 
to his heart. "It must be much from you, sir," said he, " that 
I take ill!" "And so," adds Boswell, "the difference was 
over, and they were on as easy terms as ever, and Goldsmith 
rattled away as usual. " We do not think these stories tell to 
the poet's disadvantage, even though related by Boswell. 

Goldsmith, with all his modesty, could not be ignorant of 
his proper merit; and must have felt annoyed at times at 
being undervalued and elbowed aside by light-minded or dull 
men, in their blind and exclusive homage to the literary auto- 
crat. It was a fine reproof he gave to Boswell on one occasion, 
for talking of Johnston as entitled to the honor of exclusive 
superiority. "Sir, you are for making a monarchy what 
should be a republic." On another occasion, when he was con- 
versing in company with great vivacity, and apparently to the 
satisfaction of those around him, an honest Swiss, who sat 
near, one George Michael Moser, keeper of the Eoyal Acad- 
emy, perceiving Dr. Johnson rolling himself as if about to 
speak, exclaimed, "Stay, stay! Toctor Shonson is going to 
say something." " And are you sure, sir," replied Goldsmith, 
sharply, "that you can comprehend what he says?" 
I This clever rebuke, which gives the main zest to the anec- 
.dote, is omitted by Boswell, who probably did not perceive the 
point of it. 

He relates another anecdote of the kind, on the authority of 
Johnson himself. The latter and Goldsmith were one evening 
in company with the Eev. George Graham, a master of Eton, 
who, notwithstanding the sobriety of his cloth, had got intoxi- 
cated ■ ' to about the pitch of looking at one man and talking 
to another." " Doctor," cried he in an ecstacy of devotion and 
good-will, but goggling by mistake upon Goldsmith, " I should 
be glad to see you at Eton." "I shall be glad to wait upon 
you," replied Goldsmith. "No, no!" cried the other eagerly, 
" 'tis not you I mean, Doctor Minor, 'tis Doctor Major there." 



234 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

"You may easily conceive," said Johnson in relating the anec- 
dote, "what effect this had upon Goldsmith, who was irascible 
as a hornet." The only comment, however, which he is said 
to have made, partakes more of quaint and dry humor than 
bitterness: "That Graham," said he, "is enough to make one 
commit suicide." What more could be said to express the in- 
tolerable nuisance of a consummate bore f 

We have now given the last scenes between Goldsmith and 
Johnson which stand recorded by Bosweil. The latter called 
on the poet a few days after the dinner at Dilly's, to take 
leave of him prior to departing for Scotland ; yet, even in this 
last interview, he contrives to get up a charge of "jealousy 
and envy." Goldsmith, he would fain persuade us, is very 
angry that Johnson is going to travel with him in Scotland ; 
and endeavors to persuade him that he will be a dead weight 
"to lug along through the Highlands and Hebrides." Any one 
else, knowing the character and habits of Johnson, would 
have thought the same ; and no one but Bosweil would have 
supposed his office of bear-leader to the ursa major a thing to 
be envied.* 



* One of Peter Pindar's (Dr. Wolcot) most amusing jeux d' esprit is his congratu- 
latory epistle to Bosweil on this tour, of which we subjoin a few lines. 

O Bosweil, Bozzy, Bruce, whate'er thy name, 
Thou mighty shark for anecdote and fame; 
Thou jackal, leading lion Johnson forth, 
To eat M'Pherson 'midst his native north; 
To frighten grave professors with his roar, 
And shake the Hebrides from shore to shore. 



Bless'd be thy labors, most adventurous Bozzy, 

Bold rival of Sir John and Dame Piozzi ; 

Heavens 1 with what laurels shall thy head be crown'd! 

A grove, a forest, shall thy ears surround ! 

Yes! whilst the Rambler shall a comet blaze, 

And gild a world of darkness with his rays, 

Thee, too, that world with wonderment shall hail, 

A lively, bouncing cracker at his tail! 



OLIVER OOLJDSMATK 235 



CHAPTER XLII. 

PROJECT OF A DICTIONARY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES— DISAPPOINT- 
MENT — NEGLIGENT AUTHORSHIP — APPLICATION FOR A PENSION 
' — BEATTIE'S ESSAY ON TRUTH— PUBLIC ADULATION— A HIGE- 
' MINDED REBUKE. 

The work which Goldsmith had still in hand being already 
paid for, and the money gone, some new scheme must be de- 
vised to provide for the past and the future — for impending 
debts which threatened to crush him, and expenses which 
were continually increasing. He now projected a work of 
greater compass than any he had yet undertaken ; a Diction- 
ary of Arts and Sciences on a comprehensive scale, which was 
to occupy a number of volumes. For this he received promises 
of assistance from several powerful hands. Johnson was to 
contribute an article on ethics ; Burke, an abstract of his 
" Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful," an essay on the Berk- 
leyan system of philosophy, and others on political science; 
Sir Joshua Reynolds, an essay on painting ; and Garrick, while 
he undertook on his own part to furnish an essay on acting, 
engaged Dr. Burney to contribute an article on music. Here 
was a great array of talent positively engaged, while other' 
writers of eminence were to be sought for the various depart- 
ments of science. Goldsmith was to edit the whole. An un- 
dertaking of this kind, while it did not incessantly task and 
exhaust his inventive powers by original composition, would 
give agreeable and profitable exercise to his taste and judg- 
ment in selecting, compiling, and arranging, and he calculated 
to diffuse over the whole the acknowledged graces of his style. 

He drew up a prospectus of the plan, which is said by Bishop 
Percy, who saw it, to have been written with uncommon 
ability, and to have had that perspicuity and elegance for 
which his writings are remarkable. This paper, unfortu- 
nately, is no longer in existence. 

Goldsmith's expectations, always sanguine respecting any 
new plan, were raised to an extraordinary height by the pre- 
sent project ; and well they might be, when we consider the 
powerful coadjutors already pledged. They were doomed, 
however, to complete disappointment. Da vies, the bibliopole 



936 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

of Kussell Street, lets us into the secret of this failure. "The 
booksellers," said he, " notwithstanding they had a very good 
opinion of his abilities, yet were startled at the bulk, import- 
ance, and expense of so great an undertaking, the fate of 
which was to depend upon the industry of a man with whose 
indolence of temper and method of procrastination they had 
long been acquainted." 

Goldsmith certainly gave reason for some such distrust by 
the heedlessness with which he conducted his literary under- 
takings. Those unfinished, but paid for, would be suspended 
to make way for some job that was to provide for present ne- 
cessities. Those thus hastily taken up would be as hastily exe- 
cuted, and the whole, however pressing, would be shoved aside 
and left " at loose ends," on some sudden call to social enjoy- 
ment or recreation. 

Gradock tells us that on one occasion, when Goldsmith was 
hard at work on his Natural History, he sent to Dr. Percy and 
himself, entreating them to finish some pages of his work 
which lay upon his table, and for which the press was urgent, 
he being detained by other engagements at Windsor. They 
met by appointment at his chambers in the Temple, where they 
found everything in disorder, and costly books lying scattered 
about on the tables and on the floor ; many of the books on 
natural history which he had recently consulted lay open 
among uncorrected proof-sheets. The subject in hand, and 
from which he had suddenly broken off, related to birds. 
"Do you know anything about birds?" asked Dr. Percy, smil- 
ing. • ■ Not an atom," replied Cradock; " do you?" "Not I! I 
scarcely know a goose from a swan : however, let us try what 
we can do." They set to work and completed their friendly 
task. Goldsmith, however, when he came to revise it, made 
such alterations that they could neither of them recognize their . 
own share. The engagement at Windsor, which had thus 
caused Goldsmith to break off suddenly from his multifarious 
engagements, was a party of pleasure with some literary ladies. 
Another anecdote was current, illustrative of the carelessness 
with which he executed works requiring accuracy and re- 
search. On the 22& of June he had received payment in ad- 
vance for a Grecian History in two volumes, though only one 
was finished. As he was pushing on doggedly at the second 
volume, Gibbon, the historian, called in. "You are the man 
of all others I wish to see," cried the poet, glad to be saved the 
trouble of reference to his books. "What was the name of 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 237 

that Indian king who gave Alexander the Great so much 
trouble?" "Montezuma," replied Gibbon, sportively. The 
heedless author was about committing the name to paper with- 
out reflection, when Gibbon pretended to recollect himself, 
and gave the true name, Porus. 

This story, very probably, was a sportive exaggeration ; but 
it was a multiplicity of anecdotes like this and the preceding 
one, some true and some false, which had impaired the confi- 
dence of booksellers in Goldsmith, as a man to be relied on for 
a task requiring wide and accurate research, and close and 
long-continued application. The project of the Universal 
Dictionary, therefore, met with no encouragement, and fell 
through. 

The failure of this scheme, on which he had built such spa- 
cious hopes, sank deep into Goldsmith's heart. He was- still 
further grieved and mortified by the failure of an effort made 
by some of his friends to obtain for him a pension from gov- 
ernment. There had been a talk of the disposition of the min- 
istry to extend the bounty of the crown to distinguished liter- 
ary men in pecuniary difficulty, without regard to their politi- 
cal creed : when the merits and claims of Goldsmith, however, 
were laid before them, they met no favor. The sin of sturdy 
independence lay at his door. He <had refused to become a 
ministerial hack when offered a carte blanche by Parson Scott, 
the cabinet emissary. The wondering parson had left him in 
poverty and "his garret," and there the ministry were dis- 
posed to suffer him to remain. 

In the meantime Dr. Beattie comes out with his " Essay on 
Truth, " and all the orthodox world are thrown into a paroxysm 
of contagious ecstasy. He is cried up as the great champion 
of Christianity against the attacks of modern philosophers and 
infidels ; he is feted and flattered in every way. He receives 
at Oxford the honorary degree of doctor of civil law, at the 
same time with Sir Joshua Reynolds. The king sends for him, 
praises his "Essay," and gives him a pension of two hundred 
pounds. 

Goldsmith feels more acutely the denial of a pension to him- 
self when one has thus been given unsolicited to a man he 
might without vanity consider, so much his inferior. He was 
not one to conceal his feelings. "Here's such a stir," said he 
one day at Thrale's table, "about a fellow that has written 
one book, and I have written so many !" 

"Ab, doctor!" exclaimed Johnson, in one of his caustic 



238 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

moods, "there go two and forty sixpences, yon know, to one 
guinea." This is one of the cuts at poor Goldsmith in which 
Johnson went contrary to head and heart in his love for say- 
ing what is called a "good thing." No one knew better than 
himself the comparative superiority of the writings of Gold- 
smith; but the jingle of the sixpences and the guinea was not 
to be resisted. 

"Everybody," exclaimed Mrs. Thrale, "loves Dr. Beattie, 
but Goldsmith, who says he cannot bear the sight of so much 
applause as they all bestow upon him. Did he not tell us : 
so himself no one would believe he was so exceedingly ill- 
natured." 

He told them so himself because he was too open and unre- 
served to disguise his feelings, and because ho really consid- 
ered the praise lavished on Beattie extravagant, as in fact it 
was. It was all, of course, set down to sheer envy and un- 
charitableness. To add to his annoyance, he found his friend, 
Sir Joshua Reynolds, joining in the universal adulation. He 
had painted a full-length portrait of Beattie decked in the doc- 
tor's robes in which he had figured at Oxford, with the "Essay 
on Truth" under his arm and the angel of truth at his side, 
while Voltaire figured as one of the demons of infidelity, so- 
phistry, and falsehood, driven into utter darkness. 

Goldsmith had known Voltaire in early life ; he had been his 
admirer and his biographer; he grieved to find him receiving 
such an insult from the classic pencil of his friend. " It is un- 
worthy of you," said he to Sir Joshua,, "to debase so high a 
genius as Voltaire before so mean a writer as Beattie. Beattie 
and his book wall be forgotten in ten years, while Voltaire's 
fame will last forever. Take care it does not perpetuate this 
picture to the shame of such a man as you." This noble and 
high-minded rebuke is the only instance on record of any re- 
proachful words between the poet and the painter; and we are 
happy to find that it did not destroy the harmony of their 
intercourse. 



OL I VER G 6 IDs Ml 7 '11. 239 



CHAPTER XLIIL 

TOIL WITHOUT HOPE — THE POET IN THE GREEN-ROOM — IN THE 
FLOWER GARDEN — AT VAUXHALL — DISSIPATION WITHOUT GAY- 
ETY— CRADOOK IN TOWN — FRIENDLY SYMPATHY— A PARTING 
SCENE — AN INVITATION TO PLEASURE. 

Thwarted in the plans and disappointed in the hopes which 
had recently cheered and animated him, Goldsmith found the 
lahor at his half -finished tasks doubly irksome from the consci- 
entiousness that the completion of them could not relieve him 
from his pecuniary embarrassments. His unpaired health, 
also, rendered him less capable than formerly of sedentary 
application, and continual perplexities disturbed the flow of 
thought necessary for original composition. He lost his usual 
gayety and good-humor, and became, at times, peevish and 
irritable. Too proud of spirit to seek sympathy or relief from 
his friends, for the pecuniary difficulties he had brought upon 
himself by his errors and extravagance ; and unwilling, per- 
haps, to make known their amount, he buried his cares and 
anxieties in his own bosom, and endeavored in company to 
keep up his usual air of gayety and unconcern. This gave his 
conduct an appearance of fitfulness and caprice, varying sud- 
denly from moodiness to mirth, and from silent gravity to 
shallow laughter ; causing surprise and ridicule in those who 
were not aware of the sickness of heart which lay beneath. 

His poetical reputation, too, was sometimes a disadvantage 
to him ; it drew upon him a notoriety which he was not always 
in the mood or the vein to act up to. " Good heavens, Mr. 
Foote," exclaimed an actress at the Haymarket theatre, "what 
a humdrum kind of a man Br. Goldsmith appears in our green- 
room compared with the figure he makes in his poetry !" " The 
reason of that, madam," replied Foote, "is because the muses 
are better company than the players." 

Beauclerc's letters to his friend, Lord Charlemont, who was 
absent in Ireland, give us now and then an indication of the 
whereabout of the poet during the present", year. 4 ' I have 
been but once to the club since you left England," writes he; 
" we were entertained, as usual, with Goldsmith's absurdity. 11 
With Beauclerc everything was absurd that was not polished 



240 OLIVER GOLDSMXTB. 

and pointed. In another letter he threatens, unless Lord 
Charlemont returns to England, to bring over the whole club, 
and let them loose upon Mm to drive hkn home by their pecu- 
liar habits of annoyance — Johnson shall spoil his books ; Gold- 
smith shall pull his flowers ; and last, and most intolerable of 
all, Boswell shall — talk to him. It would appear that the poet, 
who had a passion for flowers, was apt to pass much of his 
time in the garden when on a visit to a country seat, much to 
the detriment of the flower-beds and the despair of the gar- 
dener. 

The summer wore heavily away with Goldsmith. He had 
not his usual solace of a country retreat ; his health was im- 
paired and his spirits depressed. Sir Joshua Eeynolds, who 
perceived the state of his mind, kindly gave him much of his 
company. In the course of their interchange of thought, 
Goldsmith suggested to him the story of Ugolino, as a subject 
for his pencil. The painting founded on it remains a memento 
of their friendship. 

On the 4th of August we find them together at Vauxhall ; at 
that time a place in high vogue, and which had once been to 
Goldsmith a scene of Oriental splendor and delight. We have, 
in fact, in the ' ' Citizen of the World, " a picture of it as it had 
struck him in former years and in his happier moods. ' ' Upon 
entering the gardens," says the Chinese philosopher, " I found 
every sense occupied with more than expected pleasure ; the 
lights everywhere glimmering through the scarcely-moving 
trees ; the full-bodied concert bursting on the stillness of the 
night; the natural concert of the birds in the more retired 
part of the grove, vying with that which was formed by art ; 
the company gayly dressed, looking satisfaction, and the tables 
spread with various delicacies, all conspired to fill my imagin- 
ation with the visionary happiness of the Arabian lawgiver, 
and lifted me into an ecstasy of admiration." * 

Everything now, however, is seen with different eyes ; with 
him it is dissipation without pleasure ; and he finds it impos- 
sible any longer, by mingling in the gay and giddy throng of 
apparently prosperous and happy beings, to escape f »om the 
carking care which is clinging to his heart. 

His kind friend, Cradock, came up to town towarv. autumn, 
when all the fashionable world was in the country, to give his 
wife the benefit of a skilful dentist. He took lodgings in.Nor- 

* Citizen of the World, Letter xxi. 



I 

I 

OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 241 

folk Street, to be in Goldsmith's neighborhood, and passed 
most of his mornings with him. "I found him," he says, 
"much altered and at times very low. He wished me to look 
over and revise some of his works ; but, with a select friend or 
two, I was more pressing that he should publish by subscription 
his two celebrated poems of the ■ Traveler' and the ■ Deserted 
Village,' with notes. rt The idea of Cradock was, that the sub- 
scription would enable wealthy persons, favorable to Gold- 
smith, to contribute to his pecuniary relief without wounding 
his pride. " Goldsmith," said he, " readily gave up to me his 
private copies, and said, 'Pray do what you please -with them.' 
But while he sat near me, he rather submitted to than encour- 
aged my zealous proceedings." 

" I one morning called upon him, however, and found him 
infinitely better than I had expected ; and, in a kind of exulting 
style, he exclaimed, 'Here are some of the best of my prose 
writings ; I have been hard at work since midnight, and I desire 
you to examine them. ' ' These, ' said I, ' are excellent indeed. ' 
' They are,' replied he, ' intended as an introduction to a body 
of arts and sciences.' " 

Poor Goldsmith was, in fact, gathering together the frag- 
ments of his shipwreck ; "the notes and essays, and memoranda 
collected for his dictionary, and proposed to found on them a 
work in two volmnes, to be entitled "A Survey of Experi- 
mental Philosophy." 

The plan of the subscription came to nothing, and the pro- 
jected survey never was executed. The head might yet devise, 
but the heart was failing him ; his talent at hoping, which gave 
him buoyancy to carry out his enterprises, was almost at an . 
end. 

Cradock's farewell scene with him is told in a simple but 
touching manner. 

1 ' The day before I was to set out for Leicestershire, I insisted 
upon his dining with us. He replied, 'I will, but on one con-" 
dition, that you will not ask me to eat anything.' ' Nay,' said * 
I, 'this answer is absolutely unkind, for I had hoped, as we are 
supplied- from the Crown and Anchor, that you would have 
named something you might have relished.' 'Well,' was the 
reply, ' if $ou will but explain it to Mrs. Cradock, I will cer- 
tainly wait upote you.' 

"The doctor found, as usual, at my apartments, newspapers 
and pamphlets, and with a pen and ink he amused himself as 
well as he could. I had ordered from the tavern some fish, a 



242 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

roasted joint of lamb, and a tart; and the doctor either sat 
down or walked about just as he pleased. After dinner he took 
some wine with biscuits ; but I was obliged soon to leave, him 
for a while, as I had matters to settle prior to my next day's 
journey. On my return coffee was ready, and the doctor ap- 
peared more cheerful (for Mrs. Cradock was always rather a 
favorite with him), and in the evening he endeavored to talk 
and remark as usual, but all was forced. He stayed till mid- 
night, and I insisted on seeing him. safe home, and we most 
cordially shook hands at the Temple gate." Cradock little 
thought that this was to be their final parting. He looked 
back to it with mournful recollections in after years, and 
lamented that he had not remained longer in town at every 
inconvenience, to solace the poor broken-spirited poet. 

The latter continued in town all the autumn. At the open- 
ing of the Opera House, on the 20th of November, Mrs. Yates, 
an actress whom he held in great esteem, delivered a poetical 
exordium of his composition. Beauclerc, in a letter to Lord 
Charlemont, pronounced it very good, and predicted that it 
would soon be in all the papers. It does not appear, however, 
to have been ever published. In his fitful state of mind Gold- 
smith may have taken no care about it, and thus it has been 
lost to the world, although it was received with great applause 
by a crowded and brilliant audience. 

A gleam of sunshine breaks through the gloom that was 
gathering over the poet. Toward, the end of the year he re- 
ceives another Christmas invitation to Barton. A country 
Christmas ! with all the cordial! ,y of the fireside circle, and the 
joyous revelry of the oaken ha,il — what a contrast to the lone- 
liness of a bachelor's chambers in the Temple ! It is not to be 
resisted. But how is poor Goldsmith to raise the ways and 
means? His purse is empty; his booksellers are already in ad- 
vance to him. As a last resource, he applies to Garrick. Their 
mutual intimacy at Barton may have suggested him as an al- 
ternative. The old loan of forty pounds has never been paid ; 
and Newbery's note, pledged as a security, has never been 
taken up. An additional loan of sixty pounds is now asked 
for, thus increasing the loan to one hundred ; to insure the 
payment, he now offers, besides Newbery's note, the transfer 
of the comedy of the Good-Natured Man to Drury Lane, with 
such alterations as Garrick may suggest. Garrick, in reply, 
evades the offer of the altered comedy, alludes significantly to 
a new one which Goldsmith had talked of writing for him,. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 243 

and offers to furnish the money required on his own accept- 
ance. 

The reply of Goldsmith bespeaks a heart brimful of gratitude 
and overflowing with fond anticipations of Barton and the 
smiles of its fair residents. "My dear friend," writes he, "I 
thank you. I wish I could do something to serve you. I shall 
have a comedy for you in a season, or two at farthest, that I 
believe will be worth your acceptance, tor I fancy I will make 
it a„fine thing. You shall have the refusal. ... I will draw 
upon you one month after date for sixty pounds, and your ac- 
ceptance will be ready money, part of which I want to go down 
to Barton with. May God preserve my honest little man, for 
he has my heart. Ever, 

" Oliver Goldsmith." 

And having thus scrambled together a little pocket money, 
by hard contrivance, poor Goldsmith turns his back upon care 
and trouble, and Temple quarters, to forget for a time nis des- 
olate bachelorhood in the family circle and a Christmas fireside 
at Barton, 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

A RETURN TO DRUDGERY — FORCED GAYETY — RETREAT TO THE 
COUNTRY — THE POEM OF RETALIATION — PORTRAIT OF GARRICK 
— OF GOLDSMITH— OF REYNOLDS— ILLNESS OF THE POET— HIS 
DEATH— GRIEF OF HIS FRIENDS — A LAST WORD RESPECTING 
THE JESSAMY BRIDE. 

The Barton festivities are over; Christmas, with all its 
home-felt revelry of the heart, has passed like a dream ; the 
Jessamy Bride has beamed her last smile upon the poor poet, 
and the early part of 1774 finds him in his now dreary bachelor 
abode in the Temple, toiling fitfully and hopelessly at a multi- 
plicity of tasks. His " Animated Nature," so long delayed, so 
often interrupted, is at length announced for publication, 
though it has yet to receive a few finishing touches. He is 
preparing a third " History of England," to be compressed and 
condensed in one volume, for the use of schools. - He is revis- 
ing his j* Inquiry into Polite Learning," for which he receives, 
the pittance of five guineas, much needed. in his present scanti- 



244 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

ness of purse ; lie is arranging his ' ' Survey of Experimental 
Philosophy," and he is translating the "Comic Romance of 
Scarron." Such is a part of the various labors of a drudging, 
depressing kind, by which his head is made weary and his 
heart faint. " If there is a mental drudgery," says Sir Walter 
Scott, "which lowers the spirits and lacerates the nerves, like 
the toil of a slave, it is that which is exacted by literary com- 
position, when the heart is not in unison with the work upon! 
which the head is employed. Add to the unhappy author's 
task sickness, sorrow, or the pressure of unfavorable circum- 
stances, and the labor of the bondsman becomes light in com- 
parison." Goldsmith again makes an effort to rally his spirits 
by going into gay society. "Our club," writes Beauclerc to 
Charlemont, on the 12th of February, "has dwindled away to 
nothing. Sir Joshua and Goldsmith have got into such a 
round of pleasures thafc they have no time." This shows how 
little Beauclerc was the companion of the poet's mind, or could 
judge of him below the surface. Reynolds, the kind participator 
in joyless dissipation, could have told a different story of his 
companion's heart-sick gayety. 

In this forced mood Goldsmith gave entertainments in his 
chambers in the Temple; the last of which was a dinner to 
Johnson, Reynolds, and others of his intimates, who partook 
with sorrow and reluctance of his imprudent hospitality. The 
first course vexed them by its needless profusion. When a 
second, equally extravagant, was served up, Johnson and Rey- 
nolds declined to partake of it ; the rest of the company, under- 
standing their motives, followed their example, and the dishes 
went from the table untasted. Goldsmith felt sensibly this 
silent and well-intended rebuke. 

The gayeties of society, however, cannot medicine for any 
length of time a mind diseased. Wearied by the distractions 
and harassed by the expenses of a town life, which he had not 
the discretion to regulate, Goldsmith took the resolution, too 
tardily adopted, of retiring to the serene quiet and cheap and 
healthful pleasures of the country, and of passing only two 
months of the year in London. He accordingly made arrange- 
ments to sell his right in the Temple chambers, and in the 
month of March retired to his country quarters at Hyde, there 
to devote himself to toil. At this dispirited juncture when in- 
spiration seemed to be at an end, and the poetic fire extin- 
guished, a spark fell on his combustible imagination and set in 
a blaze. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 24o 

He belonged to a temporary association of men of talent, 
some of them members of the Literary Club, who dined to- 
gether occasionally at the St. James' Coffee-house. At these 
dinners, as usual, he was one of the last to arrive. On one oc- 
casion, when he was more dilatory than usual, a whim seized 
the company to write epitaphs on him, as "The late Dr. Gold- 
smith," and several were thrown off in a playful vein, hitting 
off his peculiarities. The only one extant was written by 
Garrick, and has been preserved, very probably, by its pun- 
gency: 

" Here lies poor Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, 
Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor po]l. ,, 

Goldsmith did not relish the sarcasm, especially as coming 
from such a quarter. He was not very ready at repartee ; but 
he took his time, and in the interval of his various tasks, 
concocted a series of epigrammatic sketches, under the title of 
Retaliation, in which the characters of his distinguished inti- 
mates were admirably hit off, with a mixture of generous 
praise and good-humored raillery. In fact the poem for its 
graphic truth; its nice discrimination; its terse good sense, 
and its shrewd knowledge of the world, must have electrified 
the club almost as much as the first appearance of The Travel- 
ler, and let them still deeper into the character and talents of 
the man they had been accustomed to consider as their butt. 
Retaliation, in a word, closed his accounts with the club, and 
balanced all his previous deficiencies. 

The portrait of David Garrick is one of the most elaborate in 
the poem. When the poet came to touch it off, he had some 
lurking piques to gratify, which the recent attack had re- 
vived. He may have forgotten David's cavalier treatment of 
him in the early days of his comparative obscurity; he may 
have forgiven his refusal of his plays; but Garrick had been 
capricious in his conduct in the times of their recent inter- 
course; sometimes treating him with gross familiarity, at 
other times affecting dignity and reserve, and assuming airs 
of superiority ; frequently he had been facetious and witty in 
company at his expense, and lastly he had been guilty of the 
couplet just quoted. Goldsmith, therefore, touched off the 
lights and shadows of his character with a free hand, and, at 
the same time, gave a side hit at his old rival, Kelly, and his 
critical persecutor, Kenrick, in making them sycophantic 
satellites of the actor. Goldsmith, however, was void of gaily 



246 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 






even in his revenge, and his very satire was more humorous 
than caustic : 

" Here lies David Garrick, describe him who can, 
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man ; 
As an actor, confess'd without rival to shine; 
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line:_ 
Yet,|with talents like these, and an excellent heart, 
The man had his failings, a dupe to his art. 
Like an ill- judging beauty, his colors he spread. 
And beplaster'd with rouge his own natural red. 
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting; 

'Twas only that when he was off ke was acting. ■ 

With no reason on earth to go out of his way, 
He turn'd and he varied full ten times a day: 
Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick 
If they were not his own by finessing and trick: 
He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, 
For he knew, when he pleased, he could whistle them back. 
Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, 
And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame; 
Till his relish, grown callous almost to disease, 
Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please. 
But let us be candid, and speak out our mind, 
If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind. 
Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave, 
What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave! 
How did Grub Street reecho the shouts that you raised. 
While he was be-Rosciused and you Avere be-praised ! 
But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies. 
To act as an angel and mix with the skies : 
Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill, 
Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will : 
Old Shakespeare receive him with praise and with love, 
And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above.* 1 

This portion of Eetaliation soon brought a retort from 
G-aiTick, which we insert, as giving something of a likeness of 
Goldsmith, though in broad caricature : 

" Here. Hermes, says Jove, who with nectar was mellow, 
Go fetch me some clay— I will make an odd fellow: 
Right and wrong shall be jumbled, much gold and some dross, 
Without cause be he pleased, without cause be he cross: 
Be sure, as I work, to throw in contradictions. 
A great love of truth, yet a mind turn'd to fictions; 
Now mix these ingredients, which, warm'd in the baking, 
Turn'd to learning and gaming, religion, and voicing. 
With the love of a wench, let his writings be chaste : 
Tip his tongue with strange matters, his lips with fine taste : 
That the rake and the poet, o'er all may prevail, 
Set fire to the head and set fire to the tail : 
For the joy of eack sex on the world I'll bestow it. 
This scholar, rake. Christian, dupe, gamester, and poet. 
Though a mixture so odd, he shall merit great fame. 
And among brother mortals be Goldsmith his name; 
When on earth this strange meteor no more shall appear. 
You, Hermes, shall fetch him, to make us sport here." 

• 7 • 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 24? 

The charge of raking, so repeatedly advanced in the fore- 
going lines, must be considered a sportive one, founded per- 
haps, on an incident or two within Garrick's knowledge, but 
not borne out by the course of Goldsmith's life. He seems to 
have had a tender sentiment for the sex, but perfectly free 
from libertinism. Neither was he an habitual gamester. The 
strictest scrutiny has detected no settled vice of the kind. He 
was fond of a game of cards, but an unskilful and careless 
player. Cards in those days were universally introduced into 
society. High play was, in fact, a fashionable amusement, as 
at one time was deep drinking ; and a man might occasionally 
lose large sums, and be beguiled into deep potations, without 
incurring the character of a gamester or a drunkard. Poor 
Goldsmith, on his advent into high society, assumed fine 
notions with fine clothes ; he was thrown occasionally among 
high players, men of fortune who could sport their cool 
hundreds as carelessly as his early comrades at Ballymahon 
could their half-crowns. Being at all times magnificent in 
money matters, he may have played with them in their own 
way, without considering that what was sport to them to him 
was ruin. Indeed part of his financial embarrassments may 
have arisen from losses of the kind, incurred inadvertently, 
not in the indulgence of a habit. " I do not believe Goldsmith 
to have deserved the name of gamester," said one of his con- 
temporaries ; "he liked cards very well, as other people do, 
and lost and won occasionally ; but as far as I saw or heard, 
and I had many opportunities of hearing, never any consider- 
able sum. If he gamed with any one, it was probably with 
Beauclerc, but I do not know that such was the case." 

Retaliation, as we have already observed, was thrown off in 
parts, at intervals, and was never completed. Some charac- 
ters, originally intended to be introduced, remained unat- 
tempted; others were but partially sketched— such was the 
one of Reynolds, the friend of his heart, and which he 
commenced with a felicity which makes us regret that it 
should remain unfinished. 

" Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind, 
He has not left a wiser or better behind. 
His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand ; 
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ; 
Still born to improve us in every part, 
His pencil our faces, his manners our heart. 

o coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering, 
When they nudged without skill he was still hard of hearing', 



248 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff, 
He shifted his trumpet and only took snuff. 
By flattery unspoiled ' ' 

The friendly portrait stood unfinished on the easel ; the hand 
of the artist had failed ! An access of a local complaint, under 
which he had suffered for some time past, added to a general 
prostration of health, brought Goldsmith back to town before 
he had well settled himself in the country. The local complaint 
subsided, but was followed by a low nervous fever. He was 
not aware of his critical situation, and intended to be at the 
club on the 25th of March, on which occasion Charles Fox, Sir 
Charles Bunbury (one of the Horneck connection), and two 
other new members were to be present. In the afternoon, how- 
ever, he felt so unwell as to take to his bed, and his symptoms 
soon acquired sufficient force to keep him there. His malady 
fluctuated for several days, and hopes weise entertained of his 
recovery, but they proved fallacious. He had skilful medical 
aid and faithful nursing, but he would not follow the advice of 
his physicians, and persisted in the use of James' powders, 
which he had once found beneficial, but which were now inju- 
rious to him. His appetite was gone, his strength failed him, 
but his mind remained clear, and was perhaps too active for his 
frame. Anxieties and disappointments which had previously 
sapped his constitution, doubtless aggravated his present com- 
plaint and rendered him sleepless. In reply to an inquiry of 
his physician, he acknowledged that his mind was ill at ease. 
This was his last reply ; he was too weak to talk, and in gen- 
eral took no notice of what was said to him. He sank at last 
into a deep sleep, and it was hoped a favorable crisis had ar- 
rived. He awoke, however, in strong convulsions, which con- 
tinued without intermission until he expired, on the fourth of 
April, at five o'clock in the morning; being in the forty-sixth 
year of his age. ' 

His death was a shock to the literary world, and a deep af- 
fliction to a wide circle of intimates and friends; for with all 
his foibles and peculiarities, he was fully as much beloved as he 
was admired. Burke, on hearing the news, burst into tears. 
Sir Joshua Reynolds threw by his pencil for the day, and 
grieved more than he had done in times of great family distress. 
"I. was abroad at the time of his death," writes Br. M'Donnell, 
the youth whom when in distress he had employed as an 
amanuensis, "and I wept bitterly when the intelligence first 
reached me. A blank came over my heart as if I had lost one 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 249 

of my nearest relatives, and was followed for some days by a 
feeling of despondency." Johnson felt the blow deeply and 
gloomily. In writing some time afterward to Boswell, he ob- 
served, "Of poor Dr. Goldsmith there is little to be told more 
than the papers have made public. He died of a fever, made, 
I am afraid, more violent by uneasiness of mind. His debts 
began to be heavy, and all his resources were exhausted. Sir 
Joshua is of opinion that he owed no less than two thousand 
pounds. Was ever poet so trusted before?" 

Among his debts were seventy-nine pounds due to his tailor, 
Mr. William Filby, from whom he had received a new suit but 
a few days before his death. "My father," said the younger 
Filby, "though a loser to that amount, attributed no blame to 
Goldsmith; he had been a good customer, and had he lived 
would have paid every farthing." Others of his tradespeople 
evinced the same confidence in his integrity, notwithstanding 
his heedlessness. Two sister milliners in Temple Lane, who 
had been accustomed to deal with him, were concerned, when 
told, some time before his death, of his pecuniary embarrass- 
ments. " Oh, sir," said they to Mr. Cradock, "sooner persuade 
him to let us work for him gratis than apply to any other; we 
are sure he will pay us when he can." 

On the stairs of his apartment there was the lamentation of 
the old and infirm, and the sobbing of women ; poor objects of 
his charity to whom, he had never turned a deaf ear, even when 
struggling himself with poverty. 

But there was one mourner, whose enthusiasm for his mem- 
ory, could it have been foreseen, might have soothed the bitter- 
ness of dea,th. After the coffin had been screwed down, a lock 
of his hair was requested for a lady, a particular friend, who 
wished to preserve it as a remembrance. It was the beautiful 
Mary Horneck— the Jessamy Bride. The coffin was opened 
again, and a lock of hair cut off; which she treasured to her 
dying day. Poor Goldsmith ! could he have foreseen that such 
a memorial of him was to be thus cherished. 

One word more concerning this lady, to whom we have so 
often ventured to advert. She survived almost to the present 
day. Hazlitt met her at Northcote's painting-room, about 
twenty years since, as Mrs. Gwyn, the widow of a General 
Gwyn of the army. She was at that time upward of seventy 
years of age. Still, he said, she was beautiful, beautiful even 
in years. After she was gone, Hazlitt remarked how handsome 
she still was. "I dp not know," said Northcote, "why she 



250 &LITEM GOLDSMITH. 






is so kind as to come and see me, except that I am the last link 
in the chain that connects her with all those she most esteemed 
when young — Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith — and remind her 
of the most delightful period of her life." "Not only so," 
observed Hazlitt, "but you remember what she was at twenty; 
and you thus bring back to her the triumphs of her youth— 
that pride of beauty, which must be the more fondly cherished 
as it has no external vouchers, and lives chiefly in the bosom 
of its once lovely possessor. In her, however, the Graces had 
triumphed over time ; she was one of Ninon de l'Enclos' people, 
of the last of the immortals. I could almost fancy the shade of 
Goldsmith in the room, looking round with complacency." 

The Jessamy Bride survived her sister upward of forty years, 
and died in 1840, within a few days of completing her eighty- 
eighth year. "She had gone through all the stages of life," 
says Northcote, "and had lent a grace to each." However 
gayly she may have sported with the half-concealed admiration 
of the poor awkward poet in the heydey of her youth and 
beauty, and however much it may have been made a subject 
of teasing by her youthful companions, she evidently prided 
herself* in after years upon having been an object of his affec- 
tionate regard ; it certainly rendered her interesting through- 
out life in the eyes of his admirers, and has hung a poetical 
wreath above her grave, 



/ 



CHAPTER XLV. 



THE FUNERAL— THE MONUMENT— THE EPITAPH — CONCLUDING 

REMARKS. 

In the warm feeling of the moment, while the remains of the 
poet were scarce cold, it was determined by his friends to 
honor them by a public funeral, and a tomb in Westminster 
Abbey. His very pall-bearers were designated: Lord Shel- 
burne, Lord Lowth, Sir Joshua Reynolds; the Hon. Mr. 
Beauclerc, Mr. Burke, and David Garrick. This feeling cooled 
down, however, when it was discovered that he died in debt, 
and had not left wherewithal to pay for such expensive obse- 
quies. Five days after his death, therefore, at five o'clock of 
Saturday evening, the 9th of April, he was privately interred 
in the burying-ground -of the Temple .Church, a few persons 
attending as mourners, among whom we do not find specified 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 251 

any of his peculiar and distinguished friends. The chie 1 
mourner was Sir Joshua Reynolds's nephew, Palmer, after- 
ward Dean of Cashel. One person, however, from whom it 
was but little to be expected, attended the funeral and evinced 
real sorrow on the occasion. This was Hugh Kelly, once the 
dramatic rival of the deceased, and often, it is said, his anony- 
mous assailant in the newspapers. If he had really been guilty ■ 
of this basest of literary offences, he was punished by the 
stings of remorse, for we are told that he shed bitter tears 
over the grave of the man he had injured. His tardy atone- : 
ment only provoked the lash of some unknown satirist, as the w 
following lines will show: 

" Hence Kelly, who years, without honor or shame, 
Had been sticking his bodkin in Oliver's fame, 
Who thought, like the Tartar, by this to inherit 
His genius, his learning, simplicity, spirit; 
Now sets every feature to weep o'er his fate, 
And acts as a mourner to blubber in state." 

One base wretch deserves to be mentioned, the reptile Ken- 
rick, who, after having repeatedly slandered Goldsmith, while 
living, had the audacity to insult his memory when dead. The 
following distich is sufficient to show his malignity, and to 
hold him up to execration : 

" By his own art, who justly died, 
A blund'ring, artless suicide: 
Share, earthworms, share, since now he's dead. 
His megrim, maggot-bitten head.'' 

This scurrilous epitaph produced a burst of public indigna- 
tion that awed for a time even the infamous Kenrick into . 
silence. On the other hand, the press teemed with tributes in 
verse and prose to the memory of the deceased ; all evincing 
the mingled feeling of admiration for the author and affection ■ 

for the man. 

Not long after his death the Literary Club set on foot a sub- ta 
scription, and raised a fund to erect a monument to his mem- 
ory in Westminster Abbey. It was executed by Nollekms, 
and consisted simply of a bust of the poet in profile, in high 
relief, in a medallion, and was placed in the area of a pointed 
arch, over the south door in Poets' Corner, between the monu- 
ments of Gay and the Duke of Argyle. Johnson furnished a 
Latin epitaph, which was read at the table of Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds, where several members of the club, and other friends of 
the deceased were present. Though considered by them a 



252 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 






masterly composition, they thought the literary character of 
the poet not defined with sufficient exactness, and they pre- 
ferred that the epitaph should be in English rather than Latin, 
as "the memory of so eminent an English writer ought to be 
perpetuated in the language to which his works were likely to 
be so lasting an ornament. " 

These objections were reduced to writing, to be respectfully 
submitted to Johnson, but such was the awe entertained of his 
frown, that every one shrank from putting his name first to 
the instrument ; whereupon their names were written about in 
ja, circle, making what mutinous sailors call a Eound Robin. 
Johnson received it half graciously, half grimly. = ' He was 
willing," he said, "to modify the sense of the epitaph in any 
manner which the gentlemen pleased ; but he never would con- 
sent to disgrace the walls of Westminster Abbey with an English 
inscription. " Seeing the names of Dr. Wharton and Edmund 
Burke among the signers, " he wondered," he said, " that Joe 
Wharton, a scholar by profession, should be such a fool ; and 
should have thought that Mund Burke would have had more 
sense." The following is the epitaph as it stands inscribed on 
a white marble tablet beneath the bust : 

"OLIVARII GOLDSMITH, 

Poetse, Physici, Historic!, 
Qui nullum fere scribendi genus 

Non tetigit, 

Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit 

Sive risus essent movendi, 

Sive lacrymee, 

Affectuum potens ac lenis dominator: 

Ingenio sublimis, vividus, versatilis, 

Oratione grandis, nitidus, venustus: 

Hoc monumento memoriam coluit 

Sodalium amor, 

Amicorum fides, 

Lectorum veneratio. 

Natus in Hibernia Fornige Longfordiensis, 

In loco cui nomen Pallas, 

Nov. xxix. MDccxxxi. ; 

E Manas Uteris institutus; 

Obiit Londini, 
April iv. MDCCLxxrv." * 



* The following translation is from Crokers edition of Boswell's Johnson. 
OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH^ 

A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, 
Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, 
And touched nothing that he did not adorn ; . 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 253 

We shall not pretend to follow these anecdotes of the life of 
Goldsmith with any critical dissertation on his writings ; their 
merits have long since been fully discussed, and their station 
in the scale of literary merit permanently established. They 
have outlasted generations of works of higher power and wider 
scope, and will continue to outlast succeeding generations, for 
they have that magic charm of style by which works are em- 
balmed to perpetuity. Neither shall we attempt a regular 
analysis of the character of the poet, but will indulge in a few . 
desultory remarks in addition to those scattered throughout 
the preceding chapters. 

Never was the trite, because sage apothegm, that " The child 
is father to the man," more fully verified than in the case of 
Goldsmith. He is shy, awkward, and blundering in child- 
hood, yet full of sensibility; he is a butt for the jeers and 
jokes of his companions, but apt to surprise and confound 
them by sudden and witty repartees ; he is dull and stupid at 
his tasks, yet an eager and intelligent devourer of the travel- 
ling tales and campaigning stories of his half military peda- 
gogue ; he 1 may be a dunce, but he is already a rhymer ; and 
his early scintillations of poetry awaken the expectations of 
his friends. He seems from infancy to have been compounded 
of two natures, one bright, the other blundering; or to have 
had fairy gifts laid in his cradle by the ' ' good people" who 
haunted his birthplace, the old goblin mansion on the banks 
of the Inny. 

He carries with him the wayward elfin spirit, if we may so 
term it, throughout his career. His fairy gifts are of no avail 
at school, academy, or college ; they unfit him for close study 



Of all the passions, 

^Whe'ther smiles were to be moved or tears, 

A powerful yet gentle master; 

In genius, sublime, vivid, versatile, 

In style, elevated, clear, elegant— 

The love of companions, 

The fidelity of friends, 

And the veneration of readers, 

Have by this monument honored the memory. 

He was born in Ireland, 

At a place called Pallas, 

[In the parish] of Forney, [and county] of Longford. 

On the 29th Nov., 1731. 

Educated at [the University of] Dublin, 

And died in London, 

April 4th, 1774, 



254 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

and practical science, and render him heedless of everything 
that does not address itself to his poetical imagination and 
genial and festive feelings ; they dispose him to break away 
from restraint, to stroll about hedges, green lanes, and haunted 
streams, to revel with jovial companions, or to rove the 
country like a gipsy in quest of odd adventures. 

As if confiding in these delusive gifts, he takes no heed of 
the present nor care for the future, lays no regular and solid 
foundation of knowledge, follows out no plan, adopts and dis- 
cards those recommended hy his friends, at one time prepares 
for the ministry, next turns to the law, and then fixes upon 
medicine. He repairs to Edinburgh, the great emporium of 
medical science, but the fairy gifts accompany him ; he idles 
and frolics away his time there, imbibing only such knowledge 
as is agreeable to him ; makes an excursion to the poetical 
regions of the Highlands ; and having walked, the hospitals for 
the customary time, sets off to ramble over the Continent, in 
quest of novelty rather than knowledge. His whole tour is a 
poetical one. He fancies he is playing the philosopher while 
he is really playing the po®t; and though professedly he 
attends lectures and visits foreign universities, so deficient is 
he on his return, in the studies for which he set out, that he 
fails in an examination as a surgeon's mate ; and while figur- 
ing as a doctor of medicine, is outvied on a point of practice 
by his apothecary. Baffled in every regular pursuit, after 
trying in vain some of the humbler callings of commonplace 
life, he is driven almost by chance to the exercise of his pen, 
and here the fairy gifts come to his assistance. For a long 
time, however, he seems unaware of the magic properties of 
that pen; he uses it only as a makeshift until he can find a 
legitimate means of support. He is not a learned man, and 
can write but meagrely and at second-hand on learned sub- 
jects ; but he has a quick convertible talent that seizes lightly 
on the points of knowledge necessary to the illustration of a 
theme; his writings for a time are desultory, the fruits of 
what he has seen and felt, or what he has recently and hastily 
read ; but his gifted pen transmutes everything into gold, and 
his own genial nature reflects its sunshine through his pages. 

Still unaware of his powers he throws off his writings 
anonymously, to go with the writings of less favored men ; 
and it is a long time, and after a bitter struggle with poverty 
and humiliation, before he acquires confidence in his literary 
talent as a means of support, and begins to dream of reputation, 



OLIVER GO LB SMITH. 255 

From this time his pen is a wand of power in his hand, and 
he has only to use it discreetly, to make it competent to all his 
wants. But discretion is not a part of Goldsmith's nature; 
and it seems the property of these fairy gifts to be accom- 
panied by moods and temperaments to render their effect 
precarious. The heedlessness of his early days ; his disposition 
for social enjoyment ; his habit of throwing the present on the 
neck of the future, still continue. His expenses forerun his 
means ; he incurs debts on the faith of what his magic pen is 
to produce, and then, under the pressure of his debts, sacrifices 
its productions for prices far below their value. It is a 
redeeming circumstance in his prodigality, that it is lavished 
oftener upon others than upon himself; he gives without 
thought or stint, and is the continual dupe of his benevolence 
and his trustfulness in human nature. We may say of him as 
he says of one of his heroes, ■ i He could not stifle the natural 
impulse which he had to do good, but frequently borrowed 
money to relieve the distressed ; and when he knew not con- 
veniently where to borrow, he has been observed to shed tears 
as he passed through the wretched suppliants who attended 
his gate." . . . 

" His simplicity in trusting persons whom he had no previous 
reasons to place confidence m, seems to be one of those lights 
of his character which, while they impeach his understanding, 
do honor to his benevolence. The low and the timid are ever 
suspicious; but a heart impressed with honorable sentiments 
expects from others sympathetic sincerity. " * 

His heedlessness in pecuniary matters, which had rendered 
his life a struggle with poverty even in the days of his ob- 
scurity, rendered his struggle still more intense when his fairy 
gifts had elevated him into the society of the wealthy and 
luxurious, and imposed on his simple and generous spirit 
fancied obligations to a more ample and bounteous display. 

" How comes it," says a recent and ingenious critic, "that 
in all the miry paths of life which he had trod, no speck ever 
sullied the robe of his modest and graceful muse. How amid 
all that love of inferior company, which never to the last for- 
sook him, did he keep his genius so free from every touch of 
vulgarity?" 

We answer that it was owing to the innate purity and good- 
ness of his nature ; there was nothing in it that assimilated to 



* Goldsmith's Life of Nash, 



256 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

vice and vulgarity. Though his circumstances often com- 
pelled him to associate with the poor, they never could betray 
him into companionship with the depraved. His relish for 
humor and for the study of character, as we have before 
observed, brought him often into convivial company of a 
vulgar kind; but he discriminated between their vulgarity 
. and their amusing qualities, or rather wrought from the whole 
those familiar features of life which form the staple of his 
most popular writings. 

Much, too, of this intact purity of heart may be ascribed to 
the lessons of his infancy under the .paternal roof; to the 
gentle, benevolent, elevated, unworldly maxims of his father 
who " passing rich with forty pounds a year," infused a spirit 
mto his child which riches could not deprave nor poverty 
degrade. Much of his boyhood, too, had been passed in the 
household of his uncle, the amiable and generous Contarine- 
where he talked of literature with the good pastor, and prac- 
tised music with his daughter, and delighted them both by his 
juvenile attempts at poetry. These early associations breathed 
a grace and refinement into his mind and tuned it up after 
the rough sports on the green, or the frolics at the tavern 
These led him to turn from the roaring glees of the club, to 
listen to the harp of his cousin Jane; and from the rustic 
triumph of "throwing sledge," to a stroll with his flute aW 
the pastoral banks of the Inny. 

The gentle spirit of his father walked with him through life 
a pure and virtuous monitor; and in all the vicissitudes of his 
career we find him ever more chastened in mind by the sweet 
and holy recollections of the home of his infancy. 
. It has been questioned whether he really had any religious 
feeling. Those who raise the question have never considered 
well his writings; his Vicar of Wakefield, and Ms pictures of 
the Village Pastor, present religion under its most endearing 
forms, and with a feeling that could only flow from the deep 
'convictions of the heart. When his fair travelling companions 
at Paris urged him to read the Church Service on a Sunday, he 
replied that " he was not worthy to do it." He had seen in 
early life the sacred ofiices performed by his father and his 
brottier, with a solemnity which had sanctified them in his 
memory; how could he presume to undertake such functions? 
His religion has been called in question by Johnson and by 
Boswell; he certainly had not the gloomy hypochondriacal 
piety of the one, nor the babbling; mouth-piety of the otber$ 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 257 

but the spirit of Christian charity breathed forth in his writ- 
ings and illustrated in his conduct give us reason to believe he 
had the indwelling religion of the soul. 

We have made sufficient comments in the preceding chapters 
on his conduct in elevated circles of literature and fashion. 
The fairy gifts which took him there, were not accompanied by 
the gifts and graces necessary to sustain him in that artificial 
sphere. He can neither play the learned sage with Johnson, 
nor the fine gentleman with Beauclerc, though he has a mind 
replete with wisdom and natural shrewdness, and a spirit free 
from vulgarity. The blunders of a fertile but hurried intellect, 
and the awkward display of the student assuming the man of 
fashion, fix on him a character for absurdity and vanity which, 
like the charge of lunacy, it is hard to disprove, however weak 
the grounds of the charge and strong the facts in opposition to 
it. 

In truth, he is never truly in his place in these learned and 
fashionable circles, which talk and live for display. It is not 
the kind of society he craves. His heart yearns for domestic 
life ; it craves familiar, confiding intercourse, family firesides, 
the guileless and happy company of children ; these bring out 
the heartiest and sweetest sympathies of his nature. 

"Had it been his fate," says the critic we have already 
quoted, "to meet a woman who could have loved him, despite 
his faults, and respected him despite his foibles, we cannot but 
think that his fife and his genius would have been much more 
harmonious ; his desultory affections would have been concen- 
tred, his craving self-love appeased, his pursuits more settled, 
his character more solid. A nature like Goldsmith's, so affec- 
tionate, so confiding— so susceptible to simple, innocent enjoy- 
ments—so dependent on others for the sunshine of existence, 
does not flower if deprived of the atmosphere of home." 

The cravings of his heart in this respect are evident, we 
think, throughout his career ; and if we have dwelt with more 
significancy than others, upon his intercourse with the beauti- 
ful Horneck family, it is because we fancied we could detect, 
amid his playful attentions to one of its members, a lurking 
sentiment of tenderness, kept down by conscious poverty and 
a humiliating idea of personal defects. A hopeless feeling of 
this kind — the last a man would communicate to his friends — 
might account for much of that fitfulness of conduct, and that 
gathering melancholy, remarked, but not comprehended by 
his associates, during the last year or two of his lif q ; and may 



258 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

have been" "one of the troubles of the mind which aggravated 
his last illness, and only terminated with his death. 

We shall conclude these desultory remarks with a few which 
have been used by us on a former occasion. From the general 
tone of Goldsmith's biography, it is evident that his faults, at 
the worst, were but negative, while his merits were great and 
decided. He was no one's enemy but his own ; his errors, in 
the main, inflicted evil on none but himself, and were so 
blended with humorous, and even affecting circumstances, as 
to disarm anger and conciliate kindness. Where eminent 
talent is united to spotless virtue, we are awed and dazzled 
into admiration, but our admiration is apt to be cold and rever- 
ential ; while there is something in the harmless infirmities of 
a good and great, but erring individual, that pleads touchingly 
to our nature ; and we turn more kindly toward the object of 
our idolatry, when we find that, like ourselves, he is mortal 
and is frail. The epithet so often heard, and in such kindly 
tones, of "Poor Goldsmith," speaks volumes. Few who con- 
sider the real compound of admirable and whimsical qualities 
which form his character, would wish to prune away its eccen- 
tricities, trim its grotesque luxuriance, and clip it down to the 
decent formalities of rigid virtue. "Let not his frailties be 
remembered," said Johnson; "he was a very great man." 
But, for our part, we rather say "Let them be remembered," 
since their tendency is to endear; and we question whether he 
himself would not feel gratified in hearing his reader, after 
dwelling with admiration on the proofs of his greatness, close 
the volume with the kind-hearted phrase, so fondly and fami- 
liarly ejaculated, of "Poor Goldsmith." 



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RECENTLY PUBLISHED. 

False Hopes; 

OB, 

FALLACIES, SOCIALISTIC AND SEMI- SOCIALISTIC, 
BRIEFLY ANSWERED 



An Address, by Prof. GOLD WIN" SMITH, D.C.L. 

No. 110, Lovell's Library 15 cents 

k * This is the title of a pamphlet in which Mr. Goldvdn Smith dissects and 
lays bare, in the most unimpassioned way, but with the keenest of literary 
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1 vol., 12mo., cloth, gilt tt-gjj 

1 " " paper - °" 

Also in Lovell's Library, No. 133, 2 parts, each i*> 

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LOVELL'S LIBRARY -CATALOGUE. 



165. Eyre's Acquittal 10 

166. 20,000 Leagues Under 

the Sea, by Verne... .20 

167. Anti-Slavery Days... .20 

168. Beauty's Daughters.. .20 

169. Beyond the Sunrise. .. .20 
(70. Hard Times, Dickens .20 

171. Tom Cringle's Log.... .20 

172. Vanity Fair ,30 

173 Underground Russia. .20 
L74. Middlemarch, Eliot.. .20 

Do., Partll ,20 

PSir Tom, Mrs Oliphant .20 
. Pelham, by Lytton. . . .20 
. The Story of Ida .10 

178. Madcap Violet, Black .20 

179. The Little Pilgrim 10 

180. Kilmeny, by Black. . . .20 

181. Whist or Bumble- 

puppy? 10 

182. The Beautiful Wretch .20 

183. Her Mother's Sin 20 

184. Green Pastures and 

Piccadilly, Black ... .20 

185. The Mysterious Island .15 

Do., PartTI 15 

Do.,PartIII 15 

186. Tom Brown at Oxford .15 
Do., Part II 15 

187. Thicker than Water.. .20 

188. In Silk Attire, Black. .20 

189. Scottish Chiefs, P't I.. 20 
Do., Part II 20 

190. Willy Reilly, Carleton .20 
J91. The Nautz Family .. .20 

192. Great Expectations . . .20 

193. Pendennis, Thackeray .20 
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194. Widow Bedott Papers .20 

195. Daniel Deronda, Eliot. .20 
Do.,PartII 20 

196. AltioraPeto, Oliphant .20 

197. By the Gate of the Sea .15 
|98. Tales of a Traveller.. ,20 

199. Life and Voyages of 

Columbus P't I. .20 

Do. (Irving), Part II... .20 

200. The Pilgrim's Progress .20 

201. Martin Chuzzlewit... .20 
Do., Part II 20 

202. Theophrastus Such. . . .10 

3. Disarmed, M. Edwards .15 
Eugene Aram, Lytton .20 
The Spanish Gypsy 

and Other Poems 20 

. Cast Up by the Sea. . . .20 
. Mill on the Floss, P't I .15 

Do. (Eliot), Part II 15 

. Brother Jacob, Eliot. .10 

. The Executor 20 

. American Nates 15 

811. The Newcomes, Parti .20 

Do.,PartII 20 

8. ThePrivateersman... .20 
. The Three Feathers. .20 

4. Phantom Fortune 20 

5. Red Eric, Ballantyne. .20 

6. Lady Silver dale's 
Sweetheart, Black. . . .10 



217. The Four Macnicols. .10 

218. Mr. Pisistratus Brown .10 

219. Dombey & Son, Part I 20 
Do., Partll 20 

220. Book of Snobs 10 

221. Grimm's Fairy Tales.. .20 

222. The Disowned, Lytton .20 

223. Little Dorrit, Dickens. .20 
Do., Part II 20 

224. Abbotsford and New- 

stead Abbey, Irving. .10 

225. Oliver Goldsmith 10 

226. The Fire Brigade 20 

227 Rifle and Hound in 

Ceylon 20 

228. Our Mutual Friend... .20 
Do. Part II 20 

229. Paris Sketches 15 

230. Belinda, Broughton. . . .20 

231. Nicholas Nickleby 20 

Do.,PartII 20 

232 Monarch Mincing Lane .20 

233. Eight Years Wander- 

ing in Ceylon, Baker .20 

234. Pictures from Italy 15 

235. Adventures of Philip. .15 
Do., Partll 15 

236. Knickerbocker His- 

tory of New York .. . .20 

237. The Boy at Mugby 10 

238. The Virginians, P't I. .20 
Do., Partll 20 

239. Erling the Bold 20 

240. Kenelm Chillingly 20 

241. Deep Down 20 

242. Samuel Brohl & Co. . . .20 

243. Gautran, by Far j eon.. .20 

244. Bleak House, Part I.. .20 
Do., Partll 20 

245. What Will He Do Wi' It .20 
Do., Partll 20 

246. Sketches of Young 

Couples 10 

247. Devereux, Lytton 20 

248. Life of Webster, 2 pts. .30 

249. The Crayon Papers... .20 

250. TheCaxtons, Lytton. .15 
Do., Partll... 15 

251. Autobiography of An- 

thony Trollope .20 

252. Critical Reviews, by 

Thackeray 10 

253. Lucretia, Lytton, P't I .20 

254. Peter, the Whaler 20 

255. Last of the Barons.. .15 
Do.,Partn 15 

256. Eastern Sketches 15 

257. All in a Garden Fair. .20 

258. File No. 113, Gaboriau .20 

259. The Parisians, Lytton. .20 
Do., Part II 20 

260. Mrs. Darling's Letters .20 

261. Master Humphrey's 

Clock 10 

262. Fatal Boots, Thackr'y .10 

263. The Alhambra, Irving .15 

264. The Four Georges. .. .10 
625. Plutarch's Lives, 5 pta 1.00 
266. Under the Red Flag. . . .10 



267. The Haunted House.. .10 

268. When the Ship Comes 

Home 10 

269. One False, both Fair. . .20 

270. Mudfog Papers 10 

271. My Novel, by Bulwer- 

Lytton. 3 parts 60 

272. Conquest of Granada.. .20 

273. Sketches by Boz 20 

274. A Christmas Carol 15 

275. lone Stewart, Linton.. .20 

276. Harold, Lytton, Part I .15 
Do., Partll 15 

377. Dora Thorne , 20 

278. Maid of Athens 20 

279. The Conquest of Spain .10 

280. Fitzboodle Papers 10 

281. Bracebridge Hall.....'. .20 

282. The Uncommercial 

Traveler 20 

283. Roundabout Papers... .20 

284. Rossmoyne, Duchess. .20 

285. A Legend of the Rhine .10 

286. Cox's Diary 10 

287. Beyond Pardon, 20 

288. Somebody's Luggage, 

and Mrs. Lirriper's 
Lodgings 10 

289. Godolphin, Lytton 20 

290. Salmagundi, Irving.. . . .20 

291. Famous Funny Fel- 

lows, Clemens. .20 

292. Irish Sketches 20 

293. The Battle of Life 10 

294. Pilgrims of the Rhine .15 

295. Random Shots, Adeler .20 

296. Men's Wives 10 

297. Mystery of Edwin 

Drood, by Dickens. . . .20 

298. Reprinted Pieces from 

C.Dickens... 20 

299. Astoria, by W. Irving. .20 

300. Novels by Eminent 

Hands 10 

301. Spanish Voyages 20 

302. No Thoroughfare 10 

303. Character Sketches... .10 

304. Christmas Books 20 

305. A Tour on the Prairies ,10 

306. Ballads of Thackeray.. .15 

307. Yellowplush Papers. . . U0 

308. Life of Mahomet, P't I .15 
Do., Part II 15 

309. Sketches and Travels 

in London, Thack' ray .10 

310. Life of Goldsmith .20 

311. Capt. Bonneville 20 

312. Golden Girls, Alan Muir .20 
3ft. English Humorists . . . .15 

314. Moorish Chronicles. . . .10 

315. Winifred Power ..... . .20 

316. Great Hoggarty Dia- 

mond — 1" 

317. Pausanias, Lytton. lo 

318. The New Abelard 20 

319. A Real Queen. ........ -20 

320 The Rose and the Eing/ "-^ 

321. Wolfert's Roost, Irving 

322. Mark Seaworth. g$r 



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